I have bunch of external USB hard drives that were connected to my main PC.
I recently started using android version of XBMC on Fire TV Stick but device does not accept USB drives, so in order to see my drives, I would have to keep a PC running all the time and connect via LAN.
I want to avoid running my PC 24/7 or having to start it whenever I want to watch something.
Can I use something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Pogoplug-Series-4-...B006I5MKZY
But I see it requires major modification or installing linux server on it, which may get complicated.
Any suggestions? Or is there a XBMC add-on that can natively see pogoplug and add it as a source? Are there other devices that I can use.
(2015-01-04, 17:34)hyde01 Wrote: [ -> ]I have bunch of external USB hard drives that were connected to my main PC.
I recently started using android version of XBMC on Fire TV Stick but device does not accept USB drives, so in order to see my drives, I would have to keep a PC running all the time and connect via LAN.
I want to avoid running my PC 24/7 or having to start it whenever I want to watch something.
Can I use something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Pogoplug-Series-4-...B006I5MKZY
But I see it requires major modification or installing linux server on it, which may get complicated.
Any suggestions? Or is there a XBMC add-on that can natively see pogoplug and add it as a source? Are there other devices that I can use.
Another option could be
one of these from Ravpower. That is of course presuming that your router itself doesn't have a USB port which can accept and share a USB drive over your network - if it has then you can just use that (readyNAS for example).
There is also a WD-01 version from Ravpower (you can find it at the same site), but it's a bit less feature-rich (but is cheaper). Both allow a USB device connected to it to be shared via SMB, and can bridge connect onto your home network too (I have both versions and use them whilst travelling).
(2015-01-04, 17:47)DarrenHill Wrote: [ -> ]Another option could be one of these from Ravpower. That is of course presuming that your router itself doesn't have a USB port which can accept and share a USB drive over your network - if it has then you can just use that (readyNAS for example).
There is also a WD-01 version from Ravpower (you can find it at the same site), but it's a bit less feature-rich (but is cheaper). Both allow a USB device connected to it to be shared via SMB, and can bridge connect onto your home network too (I have both versions and use them whilst travelling).
Thank you! The product you linked is very nice but it's not ideal for continuous access, also it looks like I would need one for each drive and they are Peer to Peer device and not ad-hoc, if I am correct.
Thanks for reminding me about the router, I have a USB port on my router, but in the past (when I had a Netgear router which was more expensive and feature rich compared to my current TP-LINK router) USB port caused problems, I don't know if it randomly connected/disconnected or had other issues, but it wasn't stable, not to mention it corrupted one of my drives (luckily it was just fixable errors). I think USB ports are mainly for USB thumbsticks and not for external hard drives, also do you think I can get more than one drive to hook up to the router.
I look at it this way... If a $30 router can have a USB port and allow access via wifi, why can't there be $15 or $20 device that doesn't do routing but simply allow access to drives via Ethernet? I also thought about raspberryPi, but after checking more and seeing that I actually need a whole set of stuff taking the cost up to $70 not to mention programming, etc, found it not very cost effective.
(2015-01-04, 18:44)hyde01 Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you! The product you linked is very nice but it's not ideal for continuous access, also it looks like I would need one for each drive and they are Peer to Peer device and not ad-hoc, if I am correct.
Thanks for reminding me about the router, I have a USB port on my router, but in the past (when I had a Netgear router which was more expensive and feature rich compared to my current TP-LINK router) USB port caused problems, I don't know if it randomly connected/disconnected or had other issues, but it wasn't stable, not to mention it corrupted one of my drives (luckily it was just fixable errors). I think USB ports are mainly for USB thumbsticks and not for external hard drives, also do you think I can get more than one drive to hook up to the router.
I look at it this way... If a $30 router can have a USB port and allow access via wifi, why can't there be $15 or $20 device that doesn't do routing but simply allow access to drives via Ethernet? I also thought about raspberryPi, but after checking more and seeing that I actually need a whole set of stuff taking the cost up to $70 not to mention programming, etc, found it not very cost effective.
Correct on both counts, you would need one per device if you went that way and it is designed for occasional/travelling use rather than continuous. It can do ad-hoc (it generates its own wifi hotspot, although can also connect to other networks by bridging). But it does work - I use one when travelling coupled up to a WD MyPassport drive as a mobile NAS/DLNA server.
As negge says, the best solution would be to transfer everything onto a NAS drive, but you could set up a Pi as a NAS server as well to share stuff by SMB or NFS (or indeed an old PC could do exactly the same - indeed a headless very cheap or scrap PC networked in but hidden away in a cupboard would probably fit the bill quite well, running either a linux distro of your choice or freeNAS).
For router USB, I have it on mine (also a Netgear) but I've never used it as I also have a WD NAS drive on my network.But people have used readyNAS on it, but I know what you mean about reports of problems and instability.
An old computer with a harddrive or two is definitely the cheapest option in the short run (and the most flexible), but the power consumption will eat up any savings after some time. A Raspberry Pi isn't as cheap as people make them out to be, and the oomph it has is quite low. Combined with a 100 Mbps network port, it's not very ideal for a NAS. Depending on what you'll store on it and how you'll access it though it may not be an issue.
Thanks Negge and Derren,
I already have a PC that I recently turned off (after buying Amazon Fire TV Stick). I realized how much I have been missing all this time (well, Stick was just released, so it's not like it was out there) but now pretty much everything I could do with a full blown PC can now be done with an extremely low powered HDMI device. XBMC runs perfectly fine, all add-ons work and streams channels just fine. One major downside is the lack of USB ports or any way to access local storage. It is a lot easier if my data was on the cloud since it can stream just fine.
So the purpose is not just convenience but also save power, avoid having to listen to PC's fan hum all the time, be able to use a very simple remote instead of trying to use a mouse, TV remote and a mouse to control PC & TV.
Whenever I want to watch something I can easily turn on the PC and use mapped drives within XBMC and just watch them, but I want to get rid of the PC completely.
As for Pogoplug, I found some instructions here:
http://pitzips.com/1173/building-a-cheap...ux-part-1/
and this is specifically for the pogoplug that's being sold right now, but it only goes as far as telling you how to install the Arch Linux, doesn't give any details on how to share the drives or access them on LAN.
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/...g-series-4
Edit: Found some instructions here:
http://blog.qnology.com/2013/03/tutorial...linux.html
but it's not clear as it states "The instructions below assumes you have ALARM installed on the first partition of your USB hard drive" So it's not clear. I am sure for someone who is familiar with Linux command prompt can make sense out of all this.
There are also some instructions here but I can't tell if it's complete or if it has any per-requisites:
http://www.razva.ro/how-to-install-samba-on-pogoplug-4/