[Rippoholic]

EDIT: Answered, photo further down the thread  
(I'll get some proper shots in the day time)

As title.

Can you connect two external hard drives to the nVidia shield with movies & TV series out of the box, without rooting or need for any other apps?

I have two 8TB external drives with all of my blu rays, music and tv series on, these one's:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Desktop...rnal&psc=1
These are my backup drives to those in my HTPC.
One is full with all my blu ray and dvd movies rips, the other, my dvd tv and music cd rips.

I have read that the nVidia Shield can only recognise one ntfs drive at a time full of movies and tv series, but lately I've also read that you can now hook up two drives to the Shield.

I am hoping to be able to replace my HTPC with an nVidia shield as they are cheaper, portable, plus I can just buy two. One for the living room and one for the bedroom.... or is it just best to stick to using a HTPC?

I have quite a vast collection:
http://www.invelos.com/DVDCollection.aspx/nero041001
and want to be able to run both drives into the same device.

I'm not switching to 4K so that isn't an issue, but I do want to keep the pass-through of 5.1 audio up to Dolby Atmos and DTS:X to my Atmos receiver, (which I have read that the shield can do.)

Hope someone can enlighten me,

Cheers,

tris.

It's a shame that Microsoft don't allow us to have multiple drives and audio pass-through via 3rd party apps, it'd probably sell a lot more consoles. Especially as an xbox is where it all first started.. Yes, I'm that old

[PatK]

I once saw a Nvidia hooked into a powered USB hub with 4 drives, I suspect the biggest flaw is the number of USB ports available. I have had my PC with multiple drives connected via USB to the Nvidia, and could access media. (I confess) Although I haven't had two drives on at once, I have had one drive + a router USB drive connected at the same time (which in my book counts as two).

[Rippoholic]

Ah ok, thank you. So someone here may know if it's possible at all.

Since the Shield does have two usb sockets that can recognise ntfs, I'd have thought them (and Android) would have thought of implementing it. I'm not sure how a powered usb hub would work, surely it'd still only be able to see one drive at a time?

I'm planning on putting the pc, which is way overpowered for Kodi, back in my home studio (music), so thought of the nVidia Shield to replace it as a cheaper option to building another pc.

Hope someone here has tried it before I pull the plug. I've not got a router with a usb socket, nor can I get one sadly.

I have tried contacting nVidia, but no reply yet.

[noggin]

Ah ok, thank you. So someone here may know if it's possible at all.

Since the Shield does have two usb sockets that can recognise ntfs, I'd have thought them (and Android) would have thought of implementing it. I'm not sure how a powered usb hub would work, surely it'd still only be able to see one drive at a time?

I'm planning on putting the pc, which is way overpowered for Kodi, back in my home studio (music), so thought of the nVidia Shield to replace it as a cheaper option to building another pc.

Hope someone here has tried it before I pull the plug. I've not got a router with a usb socket, nor can I get one sadly.

I have tried contacting nVidia, but no reply yet.

I'll check - but with a USB hub I don't see any reason why the Shield TV would be limited to a single hard drive per USB port ?  USB Hub support is normal on almost all USB devices.  My current 6TB WD HDDs have an integrated USB hub built in - and it's quite useful to daisy chain them in some situations.  A USB hub effectively allow multiple USB slave devices to share a single USB port on a master device. You are limited to the maximum bandwidth of the single port, but there are no issues with multiple devices being used simultaneously within that restriction.

***EDIT : Yes - as expected USB hubs work fine. My WD Hard Drive with integrated USB 3.0 Hub - with a second HDD plugged into one of the USB sockets on the drive's hub - works fine. Both drives are seen via the single USB connection to the Shield TV***

[Rippoholic]

Ah ok, thank you. So someone here may know if it's possible at all.

Since the Shield does have two usb sockets that can recognise ntfs, I'd have thought them (and Android) would have thought of implementing it. I'm not sure how a powered usb hub would work, surely it'd still only be able to see one drive at a time?

I'm planning on putting the pc, which is way overpowered for Kodi, back in my home studio (music), so thought of the nVidia Shield to replace it as a cheaper option to building another pc.

Hope someone here has tried it before I pull the plug. I've not got a router with a usb socket, nor can I get one sadly.

I have tried contacting nVidia, but no reply yet.

I'll check - but with a USB hub I don't see any reason why the Shield TV would be limited to a single hard drive per USB port ?  USB Hub support is normal on almost all USB devices.  My current 6TB WD HDDs have an integrated USB hub built in - and it's quite useful to daisy chain them in some situations. 

Of course the other option would be to switch drive from the movies drive to the tv drive depending on what I'm planning to watch, but would Kodi still display all the information of the other drive when one or the other is plugged in?

Basically, if I only had my movies drive plugged in, would I be able to browse the tv drive if I was thinking of switching and watching a show and vice versa?

Oh I didn't think of that. My 8TB drives have two usbs on the front of them, I wonder if that would work in the same way so I'd see all my media just by plugging one into the other like you mentioned?

[noggin]

Ah ok, thank you. So someone here may know if it's possible at all.

Since the Shield does have two usb sockets that can recognise ntfs, I'd have thought them (and Android) would have thought of implementing it. I'm not sure how a powered usb hub would work, surely it'd still only be able to see one drive at a time?

I'm planning on putting the pc, which is way overpowered for Kodi, back in my home studio (music), so thought of the nVidia Shield to replace it as a cheaper option to building another pc.

Hope someone here has tried it before I pull the plug. I've not got a router with a usb socket, nor can I get one sadly.

I have tried contacting nVidia, but no reply yet.

I'll check - but with a USB hub I don't see any reason why the Shield TV would be limited to a single hard drive per USB port ?  USB Hub support is normal on almost all USB devices.  My current 6TB WD HDDs have an integrated USB hub built in - and it's quite useful to daisy chain them in some situations.  

Of course the other option would be to switch drive from the movies drive to the tv drive depending on what I'm planning to watch, but would Kodi still display all the information of the other drive when one or the other is plugged in?

Basically, if I only had my movies drive plugged in, would I be able to browse the tv drive if I was thinking of switching and watching a show and vice versa?

Oh I didn't think of that. My 8TB drives have two usbs on the front of them, I wonder if that would work in the same way so I'd see all my media just by plugging one into the other like you mentioned? 

Yep - sounds like your 8TB drives have integrated hubs, like mine. I've done just that to test for you.

[Rippoholic]

I'll check - but with a USB hub I don't see any reason why the Shield TV would be limited to a single hard drive per USB port ?  USB Hub support is normal on almost all USB devices.  My current 6TB WD HDDs have an integrated USB hub built in - and it's quite useful to daisy chain them in some situations.  

Of course the other option would be to switch drive from the movies drive to the tv drive depending on what I'm planning to watch, but would Kodi still display all the information of the other drive when one or the other is plugged in?

Basically, if I only had my movies drive plugged in, would I be able to browse the tv drive if I was thinking of switching and watching a show and vice versa?

Oh I didn't think of that. My 8TB drives have two usbs on the front of them, I wonder if that would work in the same way so I'd see all my media just by plugging one into the other like you mentioned?  

Yep - sounds like your 8TB drives have integrated hubs, like mine. I've done just that to test for you. 

 Ah, so the shield/kodi does see both drives plugged in like that and I'd just need to plug one into the other in one usb slot on kodi and it'd see and play from either drive?
(Just to make sure I'm understanding what you are saying )

If so, I'd be able to get my pc back into my music studio and just use kodi on the shield

[aerogems]

I'm reasonably sure that the only limit on this is the number of USB devices you can have connected to a single controller, which I think is 256 or thereabouts. If you wanted to daisy chain a series of powered hubs and max out the connections with HDDs or flash drives, you could. You'd have the obvious bandwidth limitations the further away from the controller you got, but at it's core, Android is just Linux, and Linux isn't really going to care how many devices you connect as long as you have a unique mount point name for it in the filesystem.

[Rippoholic]

I'm reasonably sure that the only limit on this is the number of USB devices you can have connected to a single controller, which I think is 256 or thereabouts. If you wanted to daisy chain a series of powered hubs and max out the connections with HDDs or flash drives, you could. You'd have the obvious bandwidth limitations the further away from the controller you got, but at it's core, Android is just Linux, and Linux isn't really going to care how many devices you connect as long as you have a unique mount point name for it in the filesystem.

 Ah ok, so two drives going into just one of the ports of the Shield is fine then?

Well, plugging in one 8tb then another 8tb into the port of the first 8tb?

[noggin]

I'm reasonably sure that the only limit on this is the number of USB devices you can have connected to a single controller, which I think is 256 or thereabouts. If you wanted to daisy chain a series of powered hubs and max out the connections with HDDs or flash drives, you could. You'd have the obvious bandwidth limitations the further away from the controller you got, but at it's core, Android is just Linux, and Linux isn't really going to care how many devices you connect as long as you have a unique mount point name for it in the filesystem.

 Ah ok, so two drives going into just one of the ports of the Shield is fine then?

Well, plugging in one 8tb then another 8tb into the port of the first 8tb? 

  
Yes - that is exactly what I did with my WD drives with integrated USB Hubs to test for you, as I posted earlier in this thread. First HDD plugged into nVidia Shield TV USB port, second HDD plugged into one of the front USB hub ports of the first HDD.

It's worth remembering that often the two USB ports on devices like the Shield TV are themselves just two outputs of a USB hub connected internally to a single USB connection. You can also daisy-chain hubs.

[Rippoholic]

I'm reasonably sure that the only limit on this is the number of USB devices you can have connected to a single controller, which I think is 256 or thereabouts. If you wanted to daisy chain a series of powered hubs and max out the connections with HDDs or flash drives, you could. You'd have the obvious bandwidth limitations the further away from the controller you got, but at it's core, Android is just Linux, and Linux isn't really going to care how many devices you connect as long as you have a unique mount point name for it in the filesystem.

 Ah ok, so two drives going into just one of the ports of the Shield is fine then?

Well, plugging in one 8tb then another 8tb into the port of the first 8tb?   

  
Yes - that is exactly what I did with my WD drives with integrated USB Hubs to test for you, as I posted earlier in this thread. First HDD plugged into nVidia Shield TV USB port, second HDD plugged into one of the front USB hub ports of the first HDD.

It's worth remembering that often the two USB ports on devices like the Shield TV are themselves just two outputs of a USB hub connected internally to a single USB connection. You can also daisy-chain hubs.  

 Ah ok, brilliant, thank you very much

I'll have to pull the plug and get one and see how mine work with it.

Thank you so much for all the advice and testing <3

EDIT: Just trying to find videos on youtube of how to set it up for Kodi Krypton-Leah.... my word there are a lot of damn pirates out there, it's not doing Kodi any favours, really hope they go after these pirate addon makers and not the Kodi Team!

[SilverBlade]

I heard once that the nVidia Shield TV has a limit of 2 hard drives, even with a USB hub attached to it.
Is it still true? 
I have 7 hard drives attached to my Odroid C2 (the hard drives are 2 mediasonic proboxes).

[Rippoholic]

I heard once that the nVidia Shield TV has a limit of 2 hard drives, even with a USB hub attached to it.
Is it still true? 
I have 7 hard drives attached to my Odroid C2 (the hard drives are 2 mediasonic proboxes).

 Doesn't seem so matey.

I've just connected up one of my 8TB's and two unpowered 5TB's to that (as it has two usb's built into it) and it can see them all fine
(I have a 4TB Seagate external, powered, it doesn't seem to like. It see's it as a 'corrupt drive' but it's fine in windows)

I can dig out a hub and plug in pretty much all my drives to test if you like?

Just sorting through sticks now for adoptable storage..

[Rippoholic]

Just scanning stuff in, but these drives seem to be great

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Desktop...ds=seagate


Got the one on the right plugged into the hub of the one on the left, along with the dongle for the mini wireless keyboard:




No idea how to post images, so they may come up as links.