Storage Solutions Hard disk storage option for attaching to tv

thedeadghost

thedeadghost

Adept
Hi guys,
Looking for a hard disk kind of option to be attached to tv. It would be mostly used to store movies. Looking for something which would be compact with least wires. If external hdd with power cord would be a good option or only USB hard disk like go flex Seagate.
 
Does your TV support HDDs (all USB ports don't). If you can, test a drive hooked up to your TV.

Getting a desktop external HDD, with its own power supply, would be safe. You don't have to worry about the port supplying adequate power to your portable HDD.

Keep in mind though - that you would need an extra power socket for the HDD power supply.
 
What kind of TV do you have? I have a Samsung and use a Tosihba USB 3.0 portable drive connected to it, the 3.0 does not help as it can only read 2.0
 
I used to connect my WD passport to my samsung gen 6 tv all the time. now a days most of the lcd tvs with usb ports support that. but I think samsung and lg support the wider spectrum of audio and video codecs.
 
How you will transfer the movies to the disk connected to the TV? Isn't painful every time you disconnect and reconnect after copying? I would suggest you to look for options like entry level NAS if your TV has dlna support.
 
I got a Samsung full HD led don't know the model but it can read my 16 gb drive well. So I guess I better try someones hard disk before I connect or is there another way to find out ? While its safe to use externally powered drive but the extra power cord is a real pain. Will it really be important ?
 
smnrock said:
How you will transfer the movies to the disk connected to the TV? Isn't painful every time you disconnect and reconnect after copying? I would suggest you to look for options like entry level NAS if your TV has dlna support.
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its a small wd passport. pretty portable. And trust me I even setup dlna with my tv and pc. its really pain due to the transfer speeds that you get on your router. I felt that the n300 router was such a waste. other problem with dlna is that it transcodes the audio to 2.1 all the times. the setup I had, I used to connect my 5.1 system to the TV over optical cable. from all the options I tried, connecting the hdd directly to the tv was the most easiest and pain free setup where I could watch the movies in full hd and 5.1 audio glory.

thedeadghost said:
I got a Samsung full HD led don't know the model but it can read my 16 gb drive well. So I guess I better try someones hard disk before I connect or is there another way to find out ? While its safe to use externally powered drive but the extra power cord is a real pain. Will it really be important ?
Click to expand...
All the USB devices which are >2.0 follow the same power specification. so if you take a WD passport which doesnt require external power supply. it means it has been designed to work at the power from USB. to be specific 5V DC at 500mA. dont worry and just connect the hdd to tv. if it doesnt get detected at first, it means that your tv might not support ntfs file system. so format it to FAT32 and it will definitely work.
 
booo said:
its a small wd passport. pretty portable. And trust me I even setup dlna with my tv and pc. its really pain due to the transfer speeds that you get on your router. I felt that the n300 router was such a waste. other problem with dlna is that it transcodes the audio to 2.1 all the times. the setup I had, I used to connect my 5.1 system to the TV over optical cable. from all the options I tried, connecting the hdd directly to the tv was the most easiest and pain free setup where I could watch the movies in full hd and 5.1 audio glory..
Click to expand...
I dont have experience in trying 5.1 audio setup... i had similar option of using portable HD, but it was very painful for me to disconnect and connect to laptop every time. So i gone with WD MY CLOUD which has inbuilt DLNA server and even you can directly download files in that using torrent client. My current setup is, LG LA690V, Asus AC56u and wd my cloud, all are connected in LAN. No issues in playback... Now i dont even use my laptop for downloading anything. All the downloads happens via router and directly saved to NAS, accessible by all the client in the network.
 
I think this WD MY CLOUD drive is a great option for some one who is looking for only connectivity and storage for tv. I can connect it to the Tv via USB and use a wireless router to transfer movies into the drive. How would a NAS be different or a Android box with internal hdd ?
 
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