title: Using Android phone as USB Host to mount external drives to phone and accessing the memory of the external drive through phone
body: <p>I have been checking since some time to mount external drives to android phone i.e., if I plug external drive(hard/flash/camera) to android device, the android phone should be able to access the storage file system. </p>
  
  <p>There are apps in the market which controls external devices through phone.</p>
  
  <p>I can use the USB Host mode  { <a href="http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/usb/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/usb/index.html</a> } to communicate with the usb device. But USB Host and Accessory modes are directly supported in Android 3.1 (API level 12) or newer platforms.</p>
  
  <p>While an app named DSLR Controller { <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller&amp;hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller&amp;hl=en</a> } , requires Android 2.1 or above. Since the application is based on accessing the camera through android phone. If the app displays the correct info, then the task of accessing the storage of camera (or any other drive) seems to be possible.</p>
  
  <p>But I want to use the application in lower version as well. Any kind of help will be appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Please comment,if need any more description of the problem.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>