External USB HDD in Android TV

[Intrinsic]

I notice that there is some sort of limitation when it comes to using an external HDD with an device running googles stock android TV ROM. Basically, you can only read from external storage but cannot copy to it.

However, of all the file manger apps I have tried the only one that allows me read and write to an external drive is ES File explorer. All others give me some sort of error message whenever I am trying to write to them (move stuff from internal storage to them).

I have also noticed an option within the OS to reformat a USB drive as internal storage which I am guessing would mean I don't have to worry about moving things to and fro anymore... but thats not what i want.

So what I am asking is if there is any ap that offers the same kinda functionality like ES File explorer that will allow me read and write to external drive, or is theer a way I can make other apps be able to do so.

[X92-2GB]

Yep, unless you buy a shield tv, or a premium box. You can connect USB3, but limiting your bandwidth on USB2 makes today's disk drives slower than the fastest SD cards. I just connect my box directly to my 1gb ethernet connection. Since it is duplex and my router is also a media / file sharing device. It's the only way to stream in 4k DTS without performance issues, if you do not have 1900AC wireless or better.

[Intrinsic]

Yep, unless you buy a shield tv, or a premium box. You can connect USB3, but limiting your bandwidth on USB2 makes today's disk drives slower than the fastest SD cards. I just connect my box directly to my 1gb ethernet connection. Since it is duplex and my router is also a media / file sharing device. It's the only way to stream in 4k DTS without performance issues, if you do not have 1900AC wireless or better.

Thats messed up, guess that explains why my my 4k files act weird atimes. What of if the external drive is formatted as internal storage, would said bottleneck still be there? Cause the alternative of using a rounter and what not or even any other device is just something I can't do.

[X92-2GB]

Well, you have the drive, and a TV box, so save some coin and pick up a factory referb router for $80.00

I got mine from linksys on the first of the year. They have pushed new firmware updates a few months ago which fix most of the issues that plagued the wrt1900 v2 series, but the 32x and 3200 series still have issues, but open wrt is doing well on making those routers a good choice.

I had to replace a drive in our laptop, a WD black... intermittent loss of data. Repartitioned the bad sectors, so i would not write to the bad area again, and got a PSATA cable whitch plugged it in to the router for media storage. Did not even bother with an enclosure.

many think these boxes will do the good stuff on their own. USB2 limits bandwidth and wifi is single channel, unlike a good router with the capability to go 2x to 4x the bandwidth of the boxes capability with Wifi. IMO a box as a media server is only good for single user purposes only. Once you get a game going and media streaming to who ever, along with TV play back from Internet, somebody or all will suffer. You need to have 1gb ethernet be the backbone or get a higher end box with dual antennas.

[Intrinsic]

For those having an issue when it comes to writing to external drives, I have figured it out. And apparently Nougat/Android TV doesn't have a limitation per say, it just goes about handling the process differently.

You can read and write to external HDDs as much as you want....... as long as you are using file managers like total commander/ES file explorer and or you are writing directly to the folder an app makes for itself within the external HDD.

The issue would be something like this; say youu have a 4TB external HDD. And you do not want to format it and adopt it by the android box as internal storage. This would mean that if you are downloaing shows or movies via a torrent ap or something, you are limited to whatever amount of storage space you have on the internal drive. 8GB/16GB/32GB...... and in truth you get even less than those figures because the box does take some of that up for the OS.

This becomes a nightmare when you have 7 show episodes downloading to your internal drive coming in at 3GB each and a 4k movie coming in at 15GB. You will be stuck in data management hell as you would have to always move them over to the external drive to make room in the internal drive.

Well the way around this is to point torrent app (I use Flud) to your external drive and specifically to the app folder within it. This way your torrent client can write directly to any folder you have inside it own app folder within your external drive.

Technically this is the same for any app that you are trying to have write to an external HDD.

[mymo]

No offense, but I had pointed this out to you long ago :-)

http://www.FreakTab.com/showthread.php?p=735652

[Intrinsic]

No offense, but I had pointed this out to you long ago :-)

http://www.FreakTab.com/showthread.php?p=735652

silly me... must have missed it or didn't understand it.

Wish i did, would have saved me a lot of headache.

[chenrp]

Very slow speed on usb 2 external hdd.
im getting 10mbs only!

[Intrinsic]

Very slow speed on usb 2 external hdd.
im getting 10mbs only!

That's odd. I'm getting around 40MB/s.

[chenrp]

That's odd. I'm getting around 40MB/s.

Maybe it is usb1 hdd?

how come I’m getting so low MB’s

[Intrinsic]

thatsmy mot recent test result. Maybe its the type of HDD you are using. have no idea really because what I am getting is still way below what I should be getting anyways.

[ReaperMan]

I might be wrong...Many of these firmware have transfer speeds(sd card only?) capped because because of R/W errors at max speeds.
***
Still try a reboot and check /test your transfer speeds.
1 Large file may transfer fast...30k+ files will transfer slower and slower as cache is used up and dumped repeatedly.
If your drive is fragmented or corrupt, expect file transfer to crawl/fail or reboot.
My USB v2 hub maxes around 28MB/s with real average 10MB/s. All HD( 3TB+) and sticks.
My USB v3 hub maxes around 7MB/s. Max 1 TB can be attached...cheap China gear.
HD and hub should have their own power supplies.

Programs like Chrome, Youtube etc., will have huge caches wasting 100's of MB from your precious RAM.
Try ending programs and clearing cache as you test for best results.

[X92-2GB]

I might be wrong...Many of these firmware have transfer speeds(sd card only?) capped because because of R/W errors at max speeds.
***
Still try a reboot and check /test your transfer speeds.
1 Large file may transfer fast...30k+ files will transfer slower and slower as cache is used up and dumped repeatedly.
If your drive is fragmented or corrupt, expect file transfer to crawl/fail or reboot.
My USB v2 hub maxes around 28MB/s with real average 10MB/s. All HD( 3TB+) and sticks.
My USB v3 hub maxes around 7MB/s. Max 1 TB can be attached...cheap China gear.
HD and hub should have their own power supplies.

Programs like Chrome, Youtube etc., will have huge caches wasting 100's of MB from your precious RAM.
Try ending programs and clearing cache as you test for best results.

That is good reason to use network storage, with the ethernet connection.

Though I get 17mb/s average using a high speed SD Card on a USB adapter on my box.

[ReaperMan]

Nice. If they figured how to stop the R/W corruption(cnx-software.com?) I could see you getting even better results.
What speed and brand of SD card? Mine: Lexar 32GB C10. Not very high end.

[X92-2GB]

Nice. If they figured how to stop the R/W corruption(cnx-software.com?) I could see you getting even better results.
What speed and brand of SD card? Mine: Lexar 32GB C10. Not very high end.

Never had corruption issues with either box, stock or custom.

The SD Card I use is a Kodak on a high speed micro SD to USB stick. Not all interfaces like that are built the same. Even thumb drives. From a forum I use to frequent, the old Sandisk cruiser memory stick is one of the best, as it has great stability for fast multi r/w functions. Which keeps data from corrupting and failures with long term use. Mainly because the firmware is stored on the thumb drive, and it's live logging as well. So the thumb drive is mostly active when the device is on.