Question about connecting large (4TB) external hard drives to Droidboxes

[ByTheBay]

I'm thinking about getting a relatively cheap ($60 or less) Droidbox and installing LibreELEC. I'm concerned that the great majority of product specs don't mention what size USB drives a box can read and the ones that do are too small for my needs. I have a few NTFS formatted 4TB external powered HDDs where my movies and TV shows are. Does installing LibreELEC allow the boxes to read higher capacity drives or are the two things unrelated? If installing LibreELEC wont help, does anyone know of an inexpensive box that can handle large drives? And do they have any trouble reading external drives hooked up to a USB hub? At the moment I cant justify splurging on a more expensive box or looking at a NAS option. Thanks for any info.

 

[Fritz-69]

Unless you get a Windows 10 DroidBOX, it wont read NTFS file system only eXFat and Fat32.

So if your external drives are formatted as one of the Fat file systems, it will read it via USB.

With regards to LibraELEC, you don't have to install this as there are a wide selection of DroidBOX models to choose from. Stand alone or duel boot (Android / LibraELEC) systems all ready to go.

I know you said you weren't looking at NAS drives, however I have a Synology NAS unit with 2 x 8Tb drives in it which is recognised by all Operating Systems (PC/Android and LibraELEC), thus eliminating the fuss of multiple drives for individual units (DroidBOX etc).

 

[ByTheBay]

That's odd. Looking at a bunch of listings on Amazon and eBay, most dont mention what formats they can read. But of the ones they do, they all list FAT16/FAT32/NTFS together. I didn't find any listings that mentioned exFAT.

 

[Bollocks77]

I have NAS connected to my network and my box (T8 Mini) only using LE pics all the files up no problem. I aint found a file yet that it wont play.
Dave

 

[8bitDev]

Unless you get a Windows 10 DroidBOX, it wont read NTFS file system only eXFat and Fat32.

So if your external drives are formatted as one of the Fat file systems, it will read it via USB.

With regards to LibraELEC, you don't have to install this as there are a wide selection of DroidBOX models to choose from. Stand alone or duel boot (Android / LibraELEC) systems all ready to go.

I know you said you weren't looking at NAS drives, however I have a Synology NAS unit with 2 x 8Tb drives in it which is recognised by all Operating Systems (PC/Android and LibraELEC), thus eliminating the fuss of multiple drives for individual units (DroidBOX etc).

Hi

Just a correction regarding the formats:

ext4 format and fat32 are the ones that are recommended ,NTFS can work however eXFat is the one that potentially can cause the issue and not work with the device,on android boxes offcourse.2TB hard drive were usually tested and confirmed to work fine,4TB HDDs in theory should work with the device.

It may differ if you use the external one with self power supply(from the device),or offers external power.

You can also use internal drive with the HDD/SSD enclosure,usually works fine as they do have their power external from the device.

Regards

 

[8bitDev]

I'm thinking about getting a relatively cheap ($60 or less) Droidbox and installing LibreELEC. I'm concerned that the great majority of product specs don't mention what size USB drives a box can read and the ones that do are too small for my needs. I have a few NTFS formatted 4TB external powered HDDs where my movies and TV shows are. Does installing LibreELEC allow the boxes to read higher capacity drives or are the two things unrelated? If installing LibreELEC wont help, does anyone know of an inexpensive box that can handle large drives? And do they have any trouble reading external drives hooked up to a USB hub? At the moment I cant justify splurging on a more expensive box or looking at a NAS option. Thanks for any info.

Hi

On our devices only firmware provided from/by us can work with the device.If Android boxes are shipped with Android only on it you can not install LibreELEC on your own as it may void the warranty with the device.We do have dualboot based boxes that comes with Android and LibreELEC on it and rarely but there are MCE editions which comes with LibreELEC only.

When it comes to drives please read my previous reply and also if you are interested in casting videos from one device to another,this can be done on models such as T8 SE via DroidBOX Share app.Not just that you can send files across the network but also you can cast videos/sound/pictures via another Android/iOS or Windows based device,but you can also remote control device and vise versa.

Regards