ATV582 & external HDDs

[c0mat0se 0]

Hi guys

I would like to set up my ATV582 as a media server in the house using Kodi, but this will require me to simultaneously connect several large external HDDs to it. Obviously these will all need to have their own power sources, but beyond that I'd like to get your recommendations on how to do this if it's at all possible.

I have 2x 3GB Western Digital MyBook HDDs and a couple of other smaller drives. Currently my drives are formatted to FAT32 64k cluster size using guiformat.exe and all connected to a single hi-speed USB2.0 hub running off an old Celeron laptop. Or at least, were running... laptop finally went to silicon heaven. I know the ATV582 might be a little under powered if tasked to transcode, but fortunately this will not be needed and video can be streamed directly to all the devices connected to the Kodi server.

My questions:

1. Does Android KitKat support multiple external HDDs (powered)?

2. What is the best file system to format the drives to?

3. Can I use a USB 2.0 hub (powered) with the ATV582?

4. Can these devices be connected to the ATV582 during a reboot or do I have to add them only once the launcher has finished booting?

Any other advice would be great.

Thanks

[Justin 206]

Hi guys

I would like to set up my ATV582 as a media server in the house using Kodi, but this will require me to simultaneously connect several large external HDDs to it. Obviously these will all need to have their own power sources, but beyond that I'd like to get your recommendations on how to do this if it's at all possible.

I have 2x 3GB Western Digital MyBook HDDs and a couple of other smaller drives. Currently my drives are formatted to FAT32 64k cluster size using guiformat.exe and all connected to a single hi-speed USB2.0 hub running off an old Celeron laptop. Or at least, were running... laptop finally went to silicon heaven. I know the ATV582 might be a little under powered if tasked to transcode, but fortunately this will not be needed and video can be streamed directly to all the devices connected to the Kodi server.

My questions:

1. Does Android KitKat support multiple external HDDs (powered)?

2. What is the best file system to format the drives to?

3. Can I use a USB 2.0 hub (powered) with the ATV582?

4. Can these devices be connected to the ATV582 during a reboot or do I have to add them only once the launcher has finished booting?

Any other advice would be great.

Thanks

Answers:

1. Yes it does, it will label them SDA1 and SDA2

2. You want to format using your PC? Or Android. Your PC can easily format them to FAT 32

3. Yes this should work

4. Yes they can be added during a reboot. I do this all the time when using a USB with APKs on it for side loading.

[saddie 0]

Based on my experiences, my answers.. perhaps Justin could clarify on them!

2. What is the best file system to format the drives to?

- You can use FAT32 but overall it is a poor filesystem. No journaling, no real recovery features, easily corruptable. I believe the 582 supports ext3 or ext4. Other computers on the network could read and write to these HDs *through the atv582* if you shared them as samba or NFS shares.

4. Can these devices be connected to the ATV582 during a reboot or do I have to add them only once the launcher has finished booting?

- In my experience, if I have *any* usb drive connected as the 582 boots up, it fails to boot. Just sits at a black screen forever. I have to ensure that my external HD is not plugged in for the first ten seconds or so after I turn it on. I assume that the device is trying to read the drive in some way...