Expanding my Toshiba Android TV Memory space with USB HDD

by mustang_vst

So.. after 4 days, of countless hours.. I didn't sleep last night I am turning to the great reddit for help , suggestions, and alternatives. Google has no answers yet.

a WD 4 TB USB HDD takes forever to even detect in the tv, so I have opted to not wait anymore and attempt on it anything.

I was Once a king. I once got 2 tb to successfully format as device storage. Everything worked flawlessly.

I have no idea how long I waited on the stuck screen of format though.. I slept.. ate.. pooped.. played with my kids..

All this while the tv restarts and the USB becomes unreadable for tv, so I have to format the USB on laptop and repeat.. I don't know after how many attempts of formatting the USB on laptop and retrying , and that perhaps formatting my TV as well helped but some combo of some stuffs I did in the last 4 days that successfully worked and I was finally able to

Download torrents , extract zips, move files , and felt like a KING !

One day later.. my wife tells me to switch off tv and come to bed.. immediately out of nowhere my 3 year old jumps off the bed and pulls the switch..something he hasn't done ever in his life.

All I did.. was so I could let him play ( actually relive myself) the old games we used to play during our childhood.

When he pulled the plug of tv the USB got undetected and so I am back pulling my hair.

Formatting 128 gb USB stick as device is breeze. But it's not enough for my video collections, for my game collections. Infact unzipping them from the same location makes the storage all the more small.

So now I am on my 7or 8th attempt, unable to successfully format my 1 tb or 2 tb USB HDD as device storage.

I even fancied formatting a 1 tb as device storage and attempting to clone it as backup to my another 1 tb USB HDD however.. easeuse isn't able to understand it as device storage are encrypted by Android device.

I have a 1 tb formated as removable storage but it's cat poop . Unable to write.. can't browse with explorer except some specific file locations.

Flud is able to download tor to this removable storage, but I won't be able to extract, or move files..

Winrar isn't able to write /extract data to this storage either. So I will have to rely on laptop

I was once a king.. 😭

Why is adding storage and creating backup on Android TV so medieval period.

abmyusufi

Is it because you don't have enough space to install apps etc?
Or do you want to be able to play content from your drive/hdd?

TaterSupreme

Why is adding storage and creating backup on Android TV so medieval period.

Because the use-case for AndroidTV is as a video stream consumption system. Storing and serving content from such a device is not the typical use.

activoice

You could keep pulling out your hair trying to solve this or you could value your time give up on this and get an Nvidia Shield and never look back.

Syxx14

I'm not sure if this helps you at all since I have no experience with your TV

When formatting your drive in Windows it will default to using NTFS for a large HDD, but many devices will not support NTFS for external storage as it is a licensed format. A lot of devices only support FAT32 or if you are lucky exFAT. If exFAT is supported by your TV, it should be fairly simple to select exFAT when formatting the drive in windows. If your TV only supports FAT32, its a bit trickier.

Windows will not give you the option to format for FAT32 on large drives as it is not ideal. if only FAT32 is supported by your TV, you will want to try using this tool (fat32format): http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

A Hard Drive that is formatted as FAT32 can NOT store any files larger than 4GB period. If you are storing large video files you need to keep that in mind. exFAT, if supported, will not have this limitation.

activoice

Instead of having the drive connected to the TV, have you looked at sharing a folder from your Windows PC on your network and running Kodi on the TV and adding the shared folder on your PC to Kodi?

mustang_vst

Update : I am using my 2 tb HDD as removable storage. I won't have write access to it.. so I cannot copy files from network or internal storage .

So I connect it to my laptop and send ROMs and stuff then plug it back into Android TV ..

Retroarch is able to read those files and I am happy with atleast getting this work.

I see that some sideloaded apps have write access to that HDD under their own respective folder, so that's good for torrent apps.. but if I download a zipped item I will not be able to unzip it there and will need to transfer it to internal disk.. or unplug and plug the HDD to PC to unzip those files.

I also diacovered that my USB 2.0 hub from eBay has issues now ( been using it for 2 years) Basically my TV outputs 5v on the USB

This USB hub recieved 5V and as such it probably cannot distribute the required voltage between my connected external HDD . This results in HDD not getting enough power and switching off randomly. I cannot connect more than 2 HDD or they frequently get powered off. And 2 HDD also we're getting powered off albeit after couple of hours..

This probably has happened thousands of times in the years I used the tv and I never discovered the cause. I possibly have corrupted HDD and the USB hub is also a goner .

I have ordered a new HDD and a USB hub.
I was searching for a USB 2.0 hub that has also a separate power input so that it can support multiple HDD. I couldn't find this, if any one knows a good company's item please do list them.

I was to purchase ps 2 dual shock controller along but damn all controllers are so expensive atm. Anything related to gaming has become too expensive.