Database Users

Limited Storage

How are you guys getting around the limited storage/lack of expandable memory issue? I'm thinking of picking up a goflex satellite wireless drive to store high def movies there to watch over wifi on short trips but not sure how it actually interacts and if i will run into any issues with the vids

I bought a 2tb western digital my book live to store movies and music and use the wd2go app to stream to my tab 10.1. Its working well so far.
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willow09 said:
I bought a 2tb western digital my book live to store movies and music and use the wd2go app to stream to my tab 10.1. Its working well so far.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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even when you're out on the road and stream high def vids?

Mainly Amazon MP3 has been a life saver.
When you sign up you get 5GB of free storage. However when you buy any album thru Amazon MP3 you get upgraded to unlimited music storage and 20GB of storage for other media/files. I was able to upgrade when Lady Gaga's album was $.99 on release day.
That has solved alot of my music storage issues. Also with Netflix working on the device, I have ALOT of content to watch.
I'm still working on a way to take more videos with me, I'm really hoping that when I get my 30-pin to USB adapter that you can use Mass Storage devices with it since I usually have to carry around 2 500GB HDDs with me for school anyway.

Jamieson555 said:
Mainly Amazon MP3 has been a life saver.
When you sign up you get 5GB of free storage. However when you buy any album thru Amazon MP3 you get upgraded to unlimited music storage and 20GB of storage for other media/files. I was able to upgrade when Lady Gaga's album was $.99 on release day.
That has solved alot of my music storage issues. Also with Netflix working on the device, I have ALOT of content to watch.
I'm still working on a way to take more videos with me, I'm really hoping that when I get my 30-pin to USB adapter that you can use Mass Storage devices with it since I usually have to carry around 2 500GB HDDs with me for school anyway.
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i saw a youtube video where a guy tried this with an external hdd. sadly, the tab rejects it because it is a "high power usb device". it cant supply enough power to it i suppose.... :-(
but usb stick etc work fine, they are getting pretty big too these days. and i think an external ssd should work too...

js931 said:
i saw a youtube video where a guy tried this with an external hdd. sadly, the tab rejects it because it is a "high power usb device". it cant supply enough power to it i suppose.... :-(
but usb stick etc work fine, they are getting pretty big too these days. and i think an external ssd should work too...
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Thankfully I might not have that issue.
Both the HDDs I take to school has an optional hook up for external power, just in case you aren't able to get power from the USB/Firewire Port.

Man i was hoping at least one person in here has used the seagate's battery powered wifi external harddrive and can comment on the compatibility between the tab and video support

ph00ny said:
even when you're out on the road and stream high def vids?
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Using wifi hotspots yes, but I only have a wifi unit. I havent tried by tethering my SGS2 and using H or 3G, will have to test that one out.

I only have a 16gb GT, only put a few playlists from iTunes on it and put the rest of my music on Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player. I then ripped some movies and put them on the tab, about 5 movies.
Half of my storage is now gone, maybe a little more than half. It is going to have to come down to movie/video management to keep space open on the GT.
Google/Amazon cloud music is awesome for your entire collection and just leaving a playlist or two on your GT.
For long trips you could add and remove videos by using the USB adapter.

willow09 said:
Using wifi hotspots yes, but I only have a wifi unit. I havent tried by tethering my SGS2 and using H or 3G, will have to test that one out.
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Outside of LTE based service, i can't see this happening with HD videos.

You need to buy the 32gig version for starters. Then get music and docs in the cloud so you have all the internal space open for movies. Then get a cloud storage service so when you get back to your room at night you can watch movies, erase the ones you've watched, and download more from your cloud drive. Basic storage management is all its going to take. Or you could take a laptop and hook it up to the tab at night and do the above process. Last I checked this tab is not meant to be a portable Hi-Def surround sound movie theater. They might market it like that (I haven't seen it) but its meant to watch home movies, view pictures, Google+, browse the web, use apps, and listen to some music.

I am waiting for the USB adapter comes out (I am not confident enough in my soldering to doctor one up as shown in another thread), and then I'll just attach the SD Reader I already have, and buy some SD cards.
In all, SD cards are much smaller than the goFlex drive, and don't need any battery, charging, or whatever. The drawback is of course cost - about $50 per 32gb SD card (so 512gb = $800 or so (16 x 32gb), as opposed to $200 for the goFlex 500gb) - so it more matters what you consider more valuable - smaller carry size and 0 extra power requirements, or a that can carry everything, but that is larger, and requires charging or a power source.

Get the USB adapter and a handful of cheap 8GB flash drives. It's hacky, but if you're not able to access cloud-based storage then it should suffice. You can get those postage stamp sized drives for about $10 now. Watching a movie with the adapter plugged in might not be all that good, so just use the file manager to copy from the USB drives to the Tab as needed.

ph00ny said:
How are you guys getting around the limited storage/lack of expandable memory issue? I'm thinking of picking up a goflex satellite wireless drive to store high def movies there to watch over wifi on short trips but not sure how it actually interacts and if i will run into any issues with the vids
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I'm curious about Seagates GoFlex Satellite wifi drive also but I can't find one at a nearby store to buy & test out.

sounds like a nice drive from what i read about it, but just another device to have powered up
get camera connection kit, and buy a couple 16GB thumb-sticks.

It also means you can't connect to the internet while connected to the Seagate WiFi drive. Which seriously limits your multitasking capabilities.

Got a USB Host adapter yesterday
I tried connecting a powered external hard drive to the GT USB adapter today and it didn't work. I tried xFAT and NTFS disk formats but it wasn't having any of it. It either complained of a corrupted USB drive or an empty one, even though it wasn't empty or corrupt. Thumbdrives and sd cards in an adapter work fine though. I plugged a mouse in too to check it out and it worked great. I just ordered a 32 gig SD to use with it. ~60 gig of available content is pretty decent.

majkeli said:
I tried connecting a powered external hard drive to the GT USB adapter today and it didn't work. I tried xFAT and NTFS disk formats but it wasn't having any of it. It either complained of a corrupted USB drive or an empty one, even though it wasn't empty or corrupt. Thumbdrives and sd cards in an adapter work fine though. I plugged a mouse in too to check it out and it worked great. I just ordered a 32 gig SD to use with it. ~60 gig of available content is pretty decent.
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i think u need FAT32, honeycomb doesnt work with NTFS etc...

js931 said:
i think u need FAT32, honeycomb doesnt work with NTFS etc...
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Honeycomb is doing fine with NTFS on the Transformer. I tried it 5 times with 5 different Drives and Sticks and they all are working very well.
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I'm still waiting for Google Music to be released in the UK so I can upload my 30gb of music. However we have had Spotify for years, coupled with my free premium account and "all you can eat phone data" i have made a lot of playlist that I just stream them to the phone and tab.

External storage as internal problems

I have a WD 4tb my passport external hard drive that has been giving problems with the shield tv ever since i bought. I bought it specifically for the shield as an internal storage device. ill format it as internal storage, a few days later, it cant recognize the HDD. when I go on kodi it says "waiting for external storage". it happens all the time. I thought if i power down the shield instead of sleep mode it would fix it, nope problems still there. can anyone help me. i dont want to buy a desktop external hdd because im not going to have use for this hdd after i paid for it already.

Any particular reason as to why you want to format it to be Internal?

Dont know what you're using to plug it in but try with another enclosure, cable and if using a usb hub in between then try pluging the hdd directly to the shield TV and make sure it receive the proper power to work. I've also read that the Shield tv has some issues handling with more than one partition in external hdd's.
4TB should work but google search for users that report success with 4tb+ HDD, I've seen up to 3tb around.
If still you can't make it work stable then contact nvidia support and create a thread at geforce forum.
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Hrm funny enough, my Nvidia Shield TV has killed 2 external hard drives now in this exact same situation... Both older mechanical hdds... I'm running a sector by sector scan on the most recent drive now...

I had the same problem, until finally my data got corrupted. I suspect the Shield didn't have the ability to consistently power the drive and other usb devices. Even using a powered hub.
I've since switched to a WD desktop external drive with its own AC adapter. I haven't had any issues in the month since I've done so.
In my case, I needed to format as internal storage to run a Plex DVR. It won't work as external storage.

Debating whether or not to exchange 16GB for Pro

After using a 16GB Darcy for 10 days I'm now tempted to exchange it for a Pro. Basically, I could use the extra space. I was going to buy a USB 3, 500GB ssd for adopted storage which will put me at the cost of a Pro anyway. I tried adopted storage on Darcy with a 320GB HD and set it all up, but as soon as I opened ES file explorer and gave it the permission it asked for, I lost access to the disk and had to forget it then reformat it. My guess is I should have Denied that permission request because once ES cached it's files and wrote to the disk it must have invalidated it. I'll know that for next time but my point is that adopted storage on Android can be tricky. So I'm wondering, can you hear the SSHD in the Pro spin when things are quiet? That would be a con for me. And the biggest con is the lack of ir blaster on pro remote. I have volume on my TV working with this and how would I accomplish that with the Pro? I don't believe CEC can control volume on my TV. Just CEC power control is working for me. If someone with some experience with these models can chime in here it will help me make a decision. Thanks.

DJarkIV said:
After using a 16GB Darcy for 10 days I'm now tempted to exchange it for a Pro. Basically, I could use the extra space. I was going to buy a USB 3, 500GB ssd for adopted storage which will put me at the cost of a Pro anyway. I tried adopted storage on Darcy with a 320GB HD and set it all up, but as soon as I opened ES file explorer and gave it the permission it asked for, I lost access to the disk and had to forget it then reformat it. My guess is I should have Denied that permission request because once ES cached it's files and wrote to the disk it must have invalidated it. I'll know that for next time but my point is that adopted storage on Android can be tricky. So I'm wondering, can you hear the SSHD in the Pro spin when things are quiet? That would be a con for me. And the biggest con is the lack of ir blaster on pro remote. I have volume on my TV working with this and how would I accomplish that with the Pro? I don't believe CEC can control volume on my TV. Just CEC power control is working for me. If someone with some experience with these models can chime in here it will help me make a decision. Thanks.
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I have had the shield pro for almost a year now, never heard the hard disk, control volume with the shield fine, if it cant then the settings is in your tv to use external volume source. I may also add been rooted since day one with zero problems that I didnt cause myself

jionny said:
I have had the shield pro for almost a year now, never heard the hard disk, control volume with the shield fine, if it cant then the settings is in your tv to use external volume source. I may also add been rooted since day one with zero problems that I didnt cause myself
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Thanks for the info. I want to clarify that ES didn't ask for root permission regarding the adopted storage. It was simple storage permission request, "access storage, photos, etc." ES may have viewed it as external storage although it was setup as internal through Android. I'll have to experiment with that again to confirm that's what happened.

DJarkIV said:
Thanks for the info. I want to clarify that ES didn't ask for root permission regarding the adopted storage. It was simple storage permission request, "access storage, photos, etc." ES may have viewed it as external storage although it was setup as internal through Android. I'll have to experiment with that again to confirm that's what happened.
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I use to use es when I first rooted but my personal opinion is it sucks, I now use Xplore

jionny said:
I use to use es when I first rooted but my personal opinion is it sucks, I now use Xplore
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I couldn't agree more. ES has practically became malware over the years. On my phone I use Amaze. I installed Amaze on the Shield but can't use it without a mouse. I just downloaded Xplore as you recommend and will give it a try. Speaking of mouse, I'm looking to purchase a Bluetooth RII i8 mouse/keyboard/ remote. Is Bluetooth the way to go over Wifi-Direct on newer Shields?

DJarkIV said:
I couldn't agree more. ES has practically became malware over the years. On my phone I use Amaze. I installed Amaze on the Shield but can't use it without a mouse. I just downloaded Xplore as you recommend and will give it a try. Speaking of mouse, I'm looking to purchase a Bluetooth RII i8 mouse/keyboard/ remote. Is Bluetooth the way to go over Wifi-Direct on newer Shields?
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My personal experience with the RII i8 with the shield is doesnt work very well, maybe just my experience. I happened upon a logitech K400 plus keyboard/mouse and it works flawless, only disapointment is I rather have something smaller like the i8

DJarkIV said:
Thanks for the info. I want to clarify that ES didn't ask for root permission regarding the adopted storage. It was simple storage permission request, "access storage, photos, etc." ES may have viewed it as external storage although it was setup as internal through Android. I'll have to experiment with that again to confirm that's what happened.
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my guess is that is what happened, personally I believe es explorer is garbage at one time the best but not anymore, I use Xplore

I've a 2017 16gb model with a 250GB Samsung EVO SSD in a USB 3 enclosure. I filled it with 50+ games (more than 10 of LightSpeed Studios) and emulators, the speed is awesome and the problems non existant. The free space is aroud 100 GB.
For file management I use Solid Explorer. It's not remote friendly, but you can use it very well with the joystick.

cyberdionisio said:
I've a 2017 16gb model with a 250GB Samsung EVO SSD in a USB 3 enclosure. I filled it with 50+ games (more than 10 of LightSpeed Studios) and emulators, the speed is awesome and the problems non existant. The free space is aroud 100 GB.
For file management I use Solid Explorer. It's not remote friendly, but you can use it very well with the joystick.
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I ended up keeping the 16GB darcy and added a 500GB Samsung T5 SSD as adopted stage. Seems like a good setup so I'm happy. I also have a new USB 3 hub on the inner port. Now I just have to figure out how to bypass the convertible mode on the outer port so I can have adb on without losing the ability to hook up media/storage devices to that port. I may have found a way but it requires a factory reset after the build.prop string is added. I'll get around to trying it out soon.

Sorry to barge in on this convo - but I have a similarish qu. I've just bought the 16Gb today (not shipped yet) and will be either using a 256 flash drive, or my 1TB WD USB 3 HDD.
The thing that's putting me off is the fact that when you add the HDD/SD to the Shield, it can't be read on a PC afterwards. So how on earth would I transfer anything to it once it's been formatted by the Shield?

jonboyuk said:
Sorry to barge in on this convo - but I have a similarish qu. I've just bought the 16Gb today (not shipped yet) and will be either using a 256 flash drive, or my 1TB WD USB 3 HDD.
The thing that's putting me off is the fact that when you add the HDD/SD to the Shield, it can't be read on a PC afterwards. So how on earth would I transfer anything to it once it's been formatted by the Shield?
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You're not barging in, that's what xda is for. So I'm not sure what your goal is but if you want to add to the Android internal storage then you will keep that Drive of your choice plugged into the Shield and consider it integrated. To transfer files back and forth you could use another drive of your choice which would just be a transfer drive. That Drive is not formatted by the Shield but it's readable and you can manage it with a file manager. My preferred method would be just using a usb 3 cable (usb a to usb a) Shield to computer directly. It's basically the same way you would hook up your phone to the computer to transfer files. Another way which is supported by most file managers would be wireless transfer. You have a lot of options. I recently just added a Samsung SSD as adoptable storage which is now considered part of the internal storage. It's working well.

DJarkIV said:
You're not barging in, that's what xda is for. So I'm not sure what your goal is but if you want to add to the Android internal storage then you will keep that Drive of your choice plugged into the Shield and consider it integrated. To transfer files back and forth you could use another drive of your choice which would just be a transfer drive. That Drive is not formatted by the Shield but it's readable and you can manage it with a file manager. My preferred method would be just using a usb 3 cable (usb a to usb a) Shield to computer directly. It's basically the same way you would hook up your phone to the computer to transfer files. Another way which is supported by most file managers would be wireless transfer. You have a lot of options. I recently just added a Samsung SSD as adoptable storage which is now considered part of the internal storage. It's working well.
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Haha I know, I'm just being courteous
That makes perfect sense though. In which case I might use the 1TB hard drive for removable storage (movies etc) and then get a 128Gb flash drive to replace the integrated 16Gb (ie adoptable).
The other thing is, I didn't buy the Shield controller. I do have a spare Xbox One & PS4 pad. Do they work equally as well - bearing in mind that I'll be using it for PC streaming, emulation and Android gaming?
Cheers!

That makes perfect sense though. In which case I might use the 1TB hard drive for removable storage (movies etc) and then get a 128Gb flash drive to replace the integrated 16Gb (ie adoptable).
Just to clarify, it won't replace the 16GB internal storage but add to it. The Android System will still remain on the 16GB internal but the drive you add as adopted will contain the Data portion after you set it up and have the Shield "move Data" to it. It's not a perfect system and some apps will still prefer to install to the 16GB. But if you enable developer options and check "force apps to external regardless of manifest" you will have the ability to move the stubborn apps to your adopted storage drive.
The other thing is, I didn't buy the Shield controller. I do have a spare Xbox One & PS4 pad. Do they work equally as well - bearing in mind that I'll be using it for PC streaming, emulation and Android gaming?
As far as the controller, I'm not 100% sure. If those controllers use Bluetooth to pair they should work. You can select settings-add accessory and attempt to pair them. If you look around you will find that answer.

If you change the external storage as a GPT drive instead of MBR. the nVidia Shield can use it for added internal storage. But it won't do it without this change which you can do on a Windows PC with Disk Management.You don't need a PRO.

orbinick said:
If you change the external storage as a GPT drive instead of MBR. the nVidia Shield can use it for added internal storage. But it won't do it without this change which you can do on a Windows PC with Disk Management.You don't need a PRO.
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Yeah, we're way of topic at this point. I decided a while ago I'm not exchanging for the Pro. Instead I added a Samsung T5 500GB. Your post is very interesting, can you explain further? I'm a Mac user so I did originally format my disk with the GUID partition scheme (GPT) before setting it up as adoptable storage. But from my experience, you can pretty much add just about any disk I ever tried as adoptable storage regardless of the partition scheme. The Shield ends up formatting it beforehand although I'm not sure if it changes the partition scheme for you. What more can you do with GUID that you can't do with MPT?

Best Drive Formatting for Live Channels/DVR and/or Plex?

New Nvidia Shield user here... So I have a 500GB external HD that I am connecting to my new Shield. I, for the most part, want to utilize that HD for recording Live Channels DVR and Plex. I understand the two types of 'formatting' that can be done to the HD - Formatted as Adaptive (Device) storage, or Removable Storage.
For the above scenario (i.e. mostly for DVRing in Live Channels and/or Plex) which type of formatting would be the best to use for this 500GB drive?
Also, could I format a fast USB 128GB flash drive as Internal (Device) storage, then have the 500GB drive formatted as Removable connected at the same time? Any benefit to having this kind of setup? Or can any DVR recording (either Live Channels or Plex) write specifically to the removable storage?
Just curious as to the best way for me to format this drive for the purpose of Plex and DVRing live TV. Any thoughts appreciated.
-Chimp (Tom)

Does connecting USB drive give you longer live TV pausing times? Like over an hour or is Plex live TV pause limited to a certain time?

Some questions about using SSD for adapted storage

I'm getting a 500gb SSD to replace (adapt) my 16gb internal storage. It's my understanding that the Shield encrypts the drive and so it can't be accessed otherwise. Meaning you pretty much just leave it hooked to the Shield all of the time. But what about trim and leveling?
Also I presume since it's USB-3 that performance isn't an issue and even a cheap ssd will work fine. Planning on using Adata su-800 but does it matter to have dram for example?
And for the second external drive I use just for media, does anyone know how much power the usb outlets put out? Am thinking about getting a 2.5" 5tb (mechanical & almost entirely for videos) and wondering if the usb power is enough to handle these type of drives. I think these drives require the better part of one amp to operate properly. Also can this second drive be removed safely without shutting down the Shield?

As-long as the second drive is not adopted it should be fine and dandy, just ensure that you eject it from the storage menu. I'll let someone else who knows more about adopted storage and USB power chime in for the rest
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