The latest Amazon Fire TV update has added official support for external USB storage. This new feature has raised a lot of questions about what types of drives will work with the Fire TV and what can be done with an attached drive. Read on to learn all about the Fire TV’s new USB storage support.
Drive Usage
USB drives connected to the Fire TV are, according to Amazon, to be used for storing apps and games. This feature was added to the Fire TV so that you can store more apps than the internal 8GB storage allows. There is, however, a huge disappointing shortfall with this new feature. You can only move an app’s main files to USB storage. An app’s “data” files must remain on the Fire TV’s internal storage. Many popular large games like GTA: San Andreas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic store the vast majority of the game’s files as “data”. This means these games essentially cannot be moved to USB storage.
To get an idea of how much of an app can be moved to USB storage, look at the app’s “Size” value listed on the app’s detail/product page. The amount listed is usually how much can be moved to USB storage. For example, GTA: San Andreas lists a size of 77.2MB, which means the majority of the game will remain on the Fire TV’s internal storage. NBA 2K15, on the other hand, lists a file size of 1.8GB so you can be pretty sure that most of the app can be moved to USB storage.
As for other uses of USB storage, Amazon explicitly states that “you cannot access any media that you side-loaded onto the USB device.” The good news is that Amazon is not going out of their way to block apps from accessing USB external storage. Apps like Kodi and VLC can play media stored on an attached external drive without any issues. Files stored on a USB drive attached to the Fire TV can be found under the directory: /storage/extUsb/
USB Hubs
USB hubs work with the Fire TV and external USB storage. Since the Fire TV only has one USB port, you can use a USB hub to connect both a USB drive and other USB devices like a FLIRC, mice, and keyboards simultaneously. You cannot use a USB hub to mount two USB drives. The Fire TV will only mount the first USB drive it detects.
Both powered and unpowered USB hubs work with the Fire TV. Some powered USB hubs will cause the Fire TV to freeze on the white Amazon logo during boot up. This is due to the Fire TV detecting power coming into its USB port which makes the Fire TV think it’s plugged into a computer which causes it to enter fastboot mode. If your powered USB hub does this, then you will need to unplug or power down the powered USB hub every time you reboot your Fire TV and then plug it back in once the Fire TV has booted.
Drive Type
Amazon’s USB storage requirements state that the USB drive type must be a “Flash drive” and that “external hard drives are not supported and may result in inconsistent behavior.” That said, external SSD and spinning disc hard drives are detected and work with the Fire TV. However, the Fire TV’s USB port will not be able to power most external hard drives. To use an external hard drive with the Fire TV, you will likely need to use a powered USB hub if the hard drive does not have its own power supply. Even 2.5 inch portable hard drives, which normally do not require external power when used with a computer, cannot be powered by the Fire TV’s USB port. You should also be aware that spinning hard drives have significantly slower access times compared to flash drives and SSDs. This means apps and games stored on spinning drives will likely load slower and may stutter or freeze at times. Lastly, the Fire TV will not spin down most external hard drives when idle. This is bad for the drive and will shorten the lifespan of the drive. If you plan to use a large spinning drive to store media for playback on the Fire TV, I suggest you turn off the drive when it’s not in use. The slower access times and shortened lifespan are why Amazon is rightfully not officially supporting or recommending the use of spinning external hard drives with the Fire TV.
Drive Format
The Fire TV only supports USB drives formatted with a FAT32 file system. NTFS, exFAT, HFS, ext#, and other file systems are not supported. If you insert a USB drive with a file system other than FAT32, the Fire TV will ask if you’d like to format the drive. Also, if the USB drive has multiple partitions, the Fire TV will only use the first FAT32 partition it detects. The FAT32 file system only supports file sizes up to 4 GB. Many HD movie files are larger than 4GB, so this means you will not be able to store these types of files on a drive that the Fire TV can read.
Drive Size
Amazon officially recommends USB drives that are 128GB or smaller. However, the Fire TV will detect and use drives that are larger than 128GB just fine. I personally connected a 1.5TB drive and have read comments from people who have connected even larger drives. Even Amazon’s list of officially supported USB drives includes a drive larger than 128GB.
Drive Speed
Amazon recommends high speed USB 3.0 drives for use with the Fire TV. However, USB 2.0 drives work fine. The Fire TV has a USB 2.0 port, so you may wonder why Amazon recommends a USB 3.0 drive. It’s likely because USB 3.0 drives tend to have faster read and write speeds than USB 2.0 drives. This ensures the bottleneck between the Fire TV and the drive is the speed of the USB port and not the speed of the drive.
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I’ve been trying to get the new updates for some reason my aftv is not detecting it. Anyone know how to push the update
There is no way to push or force the update. The update has not rolled out to all devices yet. There is nothing wrong with your Fire TV. You just need to wait and you’ll eventually get the update.
Any idea how they determine the order in which devices get the update? Have two boxes and a stick. One box and the stick received their updates the night it was announced. The other box is still waiting for the update.
No, I don’t know how Amazon determines it. However, it does seem that the order does not change. Of all the Fire TVs I own, the same one always gets the updates first. So if you have a Fire TV that hasn’t updated yet, it will always be late to update.
I have a 2tb external hard drive connected to my Firestick 4K max. It was set to fat 32 so the Firestick set it up as internal drive. Now that I have installed the apps to the hard drive it shows the mark next to each app installed. What I don’t understand is that internal drive is almost full and the external drive that I installed show 1.97 tv unused. Loosing my mind. Can you give advice please?
Ihave. 2 TB flash drive and the firestick won’t get out of boot up mode.
As far as I remember the update has been sent to only a small percentage of boxes before it rolls out to all in april. This way bugs can be smoothed out before the complete roll out.
Go to settings. You can choose to update the device.
Settings, system, about.
Any idea if drives can be used in conjunction with Kodi as PVR storage?
As far as Kodi is concerned, the attached drive is fully accessible, so I see no reason why any of Kodi’s functionality wouldn’t work with the drive.
I just realized I have a problem accessing my 128 gb flash drive. The new update detects it and says it will use it for storage, but when I go into the KODI app and access the storage under video addons and files, there is nothing there. My downloaded movies are gone or not showing in the app. How do I restore that?
I had the same symptoms and I solved it by going to the Amazon Fire TV’s system setting off of the box’s main menu, unmounting the USB storage device then mounting it back. Kodi was then able to view all of the files in the USB stick.
Yes u can
Using mash app or phoenix apps
Great info on this site it’s been really helpful.
I’m curious, is this guide still relevant if I want to have a SSD function as “internal” storage on a rooted AFTV?
http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-use-a-usb-drive-as-the-fire-tvs-internal-storage/
Has anyone set this up with the new Fire TV update?
This. I’ve been running a 1tb HDD as internal based on that guide for months. No mention (that I’ve seen) of how this update affects those of us that did. I’m too scared to update to the new rom until someone knows for sure how it all works out.
I’ll try to test this sometime this week.
Thanks! You’re awesome.
Same question here.. Thanks man, you’re great! =)
I have tried this. The Amazon update overrides the ext drive mnt, and is no go for my ext4 drive. I am reverting for now because I have too much on my external drive to migrate to fat32.
What did you set the partition size too for a 1tb sized usb drive?
I think I recall reading that Kodi will not natively utilize USB storage for its cache, even if you move the app over to the USB disk. Is that correct? If so, is there nay news on what we have to put into the advancedsettings.xml file in order to make that happen?
How is adb debugging over usb possible? I want to sideload kodi via usb, because i think this will work faster.
You can either load Kodi on a USB drive and use something like ES File Explorer to install it, or connect your Fire TV to a computer with an A-to-A USB cable and turn on the “USB debugging” option in the settings menu.
What affect will this update have if I followed your guide to trick the fire tv to recognizing an external ssd as internal storage? Will I lose that functionality? Will the fire tv now recognize it as external?
Ditto.
I plan to test that sometime this week.
Has it been confirmed that the latest update does not affect the use of an ssd as internal storage?
USB 3.0 does NOT have faster drives then USB 2.0. They have the same drives. Your 5400 RPM, or 7200 RPM drive only goes so fast. USB 2.0 has a limit of 480mbs. USB 3.0 isn’t going to magically make anything faster when it’s limited by the same technology the USB 2.0 is limited by.
Just want to point this out to peeps. If you get a cheap external HD the speed is limited by the type of HD it is, not if it’s USB 2.0 or USB 3.0.
This refers to Flash Drives
@nyder, since USB 3.0 drives tend to be newer technology than USB 2.0 they tend to feature enhancements that the 2.0 drives don’t have. For starters, newer drives may have higher data density which essentially means more data per revolution so faster transfer at the same RPM. They may also feature UAS, which improves data transfer speed, but it’s unclear as to whether AFT can utilize UAS. That said, in real world tests, my experience has been the following: 1. It’s almost impossible to do a strictly scientific comparison of an identical spindle in both a USB 2.0 and 3.0 configuration because you simply can’t find a manufacturer that produces that. 2. In my own non-scientific tests I regularly see USB 3.0 portable drives transfer data about 2x the speed of USB 2.0 drives on my USB 2 equipped macbook pro. Again, it’s not clear whether UAS has anything to do with that.
I downgrade again to the 51.4.3 firmware cause i dont know how install again the apps to the usb and i check the usb and amazon pack the apps like one file and i cant see when the devices is conect to mount with folder mount and i donwgrade and used the foldermount and mount the data and obb and now i have the perfect AFTV.
the only trouble that i have is the mouse and the backspace of my k400 i can use and some apps like browser and the amazon menu i can use the mouse for click like before, but i think is better lose the bluetooth and the usb Storage if i can move all my files for the usb.
From day 1 of this update no matter what I do F TV wont detect my usb stick (2 of them) in fat32.
Disable adb debugging
Can Kodi data be moved to the HD? I know the app can be moved. Thank you
I hope to have a guide on this up tomorrow.
Thank you
Please do, i’m hoping it’s an easy process and works flawlessly. thanks
any news on this guide. Thank you.
FAT32 was developed by Microsoft for use in Windows 95. It’s 20 years old. Excellent choice Amazon!
Hopefully new file systems will be supported in future updates….
FAT32 has become of the most understood and stable filesystems ever built, even under the Linux kernel. From Wii modding to embedded Linux appliance hacking when resources are constrained, you will find FAT32 to be a preferred FS and the most painless route to take. Before sticking your hand up criticizing Amazon’s lack of support for “ZFS”, Reiser or whatever it is _you_ think is needed, consider browsing to Wikipedia as a precursor to filesystems or getting a computer science education, so that you are in a position to judge what the best tool is for the job.
Hmmm. FAT32 has become the de-facto “lowest common denominator”, but that does not mean it has much going for it! It surprises me that more use has not been made of UDF https://sites.google.com/site/udfintro/ as it is commonly supported across every significant operating and has much more advanced features than FAT32. On Linux the problem seems to boil down to the lack of a fsck.udf i.e. a tool to repair a UDF filesystem. Tools exist for Linux to create and read from UDF, but not currently to repair, sadly.
This update seems to limited to the UK as of today. Amazon.com support page shows the February update as current, Amazon.co.uk shows this current update.
The update is definitely going out to US Fire TVs already. It’s not unusual for the UK help pages to be different from the US help pages. It seems like they’re updated by two different teems. Also, US Amazon tends not to acknowledge the update until it has been out for a week or more.
Thanks for clarifying, I’ll keep checking!
I just got a new box and it already had the update on it. Tried a 1.5T drive on it. Worked great….and quick. I could watch media via Kodi through it. Problem though, when I got up in the morning, there was a flashing orange light on my box….indicating a thermal problem I believe. This makes sense when you say that it does not power down a drive when not in use. Everything worked fine again once I removed the drive. I wonder if I added the drive to a powered usb hub, this wouldn’t happen. For now, to be safe, I will only plug the drive in when I need it. I did try a flash drive to load a repository into koi and that worked fine.
I am Awared as has been said already here:
-That there is no way to push or force the FireTV update.
-That the update has not rolled out to all devices yet.
-That We just need to wait and we eventually will get the update….
But, I Have Two FireTV Boxes and also Two FireTV Sticks, and Unfortunately on none of them I have received this NEW Update Yet!!!
I Remember that When the previous February Update was released, I received the update in 1-2 days, but with this New Update things are getting Extremelly Slower…
I have Noticed that It is not Only Me, some of my friends are also Waiting and Waiting and Waiting!!
Since it have been almost a Week, that the Amazon Fire TV update 51.1.5.0 and Fire TV Stick update 54.1.1.0 have been released, I really think that this Update is Taking an Extremelly Long, Long Time to Arrive!!!
What is Happening??
Contact Amazon and voice your complaints there. Let them know you are not happy about the wait time.
I have 2 Fire TV, one from the States, bought in february, one from the UK, bought last week, and they both received the update this very Tuesday morning. Just have to wait, mate.
It is possible that you will not believe this, but 5 minutes before I send a complaint to Amazon about the long delay in updating all my FireTV units, at last I have Received this New Update on all my Fire Sticks and also on all my FireTV Boxes…
And I must Say that the Addition of External USB Storage is Really Great!!
The FireTv was Needing this External USB Option, 1000 Thanks to Amazon!!!!
Wah Wah Wahhhhhhhh almost had USB support for more games. :-/
Good timing on the article. Finally got the update wooo. Thanks woooo
I may have missed it in the info but can the drive attached be shared across a network to other fire tv devices? (kodi running on multiple devices)
Also being FAT32 does that mean files larger than 4gb cannot be stored on the drive?
Files bigger than 4GB not supported.
However, Kodi/XBMC will play properly named split files: http://kodi.wiki/view/Naming_video_files/Movies#Split_video_files_.28file_stacking.29
Hi,
Anyone have an issue after the last update the USB storage shows external space only 197MB available, no matter what usb flash storage you plug in?
I’ve tried all types of USB sticks, and it results in the same space available.
Thanks
Just to add to this,
I’ve also inserted USB flash stick with exFat, NTFS(to see if it would ask me to format it to FAT32) and it recognises the stick but displays 197MB available space.
It is as though it is mounting the wrong storage.
I just wrote this post for you. It should resolve your issue and let you see the entire drive size.
http://www.aftvnews.com/what-to-do-if-the-amazon-fire-tv-only-sees-197mb-of-a-usb-drive/
From my own experience if you had the usb as internal memory before do not update. No only does the mount2data not work anymore but the new update doesn’t detect my drive. I’m going to try to reinstall my backup
Okay I had a backup and now everything is good. Had it not been for rom manager asking me did I want to backup I would have been screwed.
So is it definitive that with this update we cannot use more than one usb storage device at the same time? And also that the USB storage cannot be used to store an application’s data files?
This almost seems like Amazon incorporated Foldermount’s basic functionality and called it a day.
I’m hoping that this rather limited functionality can be worked around. Else I think I may be better off downgrading back to the previous firmware.
Hello, question… i have a amazon tv rooted, if i update to the pre-rooted 51.1.5.0_515020820, i can still use kodi with my 2tb wd hard drive in NFTS???? Thanks to the answer!! great site!!! I check every day!!
BTW sorry for my english XD
The new built in USB storage support will not work with your NTFS drive. I do not know yet if the older methods of mounting an NTFS on a rooted device still work.
Could be worth pointing out that Kodi will play files >4Gb if they are split and named properly.
http://kodi.wiki/view/Naming_video_files/Movies#Split_video_files_.28file_stacking.29
Issue after moving files to USB drive
I moved my applications to my USB drive, but encounter some issue. My sideload app such as Kodi does not appear on Recent list after I ran it. Anyone has the same problem? Any remedies?
BTW, my AFTV box is not rooted.
Just wondering here. With the usb update, can I attach an external dvd drive to the FireTV allowing Kodi/XBMC to play from the external dvd drive. I know about sharing a dvd drive on my network, but did not want to have to have another computer up and running.
Thanks.
Who uses DVD drives anymore ….. and why would you want to, so slow to read the data.
OK,
How about a external bluray drive?
How about all those DVDs that I have in which I don’t want eating up my storage space on my NAS.
BTW, JB. Just because you may or may not use DVDs, doesn’t mean you can Hijack my legit question with your dismissive comment. Thanks.
Does anyone think that this External DVD drive will work with the FireTV running Kodi/XBMC?
Samsung Electronics Ultra-Slim Optical Drives SE-218GN/RSBD.
It is on Amazon and according to a very detailed review the DVD drive works with Android 3.1 or higher (read/play only).
Will the Amazon FireTV’s custom flavor of Android be compatible?
I would like to make the FireTV my all in one video entertainment hub (Amazon Prime Video + Netflix + Kodi/XBMC + DVDs = Awesomeness).
Stupid questions + dumbass = Kirk
No mpeg2 support for video, and no drivers to support hardware. So no.
So there isn’t any workaround to move the DATA part to the USB drive? And what about the DATA part of the sideloaded apps (Android/obb foder)? Can they be moved to the USB? (I’m not rooted)
bummber, staples ran out of “rootable fire tv..’
but its good with the latest update il be able to use the usb drive which matter most.
the only advantage i see with rootable fire is enabling usb drive support…
Is there some way to make external USB storage the main storage on nonrooted FTV?
I’m having an issue with the new update. Every time I insert a usb drive, the FireTV wants to format it. After formatting the drive, it looks ok, but once it’s ejected and plugged back in, it once again wants to format it. What am I doing wrong?
I’m running the latest pre-rooted firmware. I understand the USB storage issues (I think ). When I insert a USB stick formatted as ex-fat which contains a TV show which is properly named, etc. the AFTV gives me the option to reformat the stick as FAT. I cancel. The AFTV then lists no external storage. Stickmount recognizes and mounts the device. Kodi also recognizes the device but does not see the content whether I specify local, TVDB or none. When I remove the USB stick and try to mount it on my Mac the device is now unrecognized. When I open Disk Utility the content has been erased so clearly the AFTV has done something to the stick.
Any ideas?
John,
Your experiment is interesting. What would happen if a flash drive had two partitions, the first being a sacrificial tiny FAT32 partition to satisfy the FireTV, and the second being NTFS or exFat or ext4 etc. Would the FireTV then ignore the 2nd partition? And would we then be able to use Stickmount/Link2SD to move apps data to the 2nd partition?
Yes, moving Apps to 2nd partition works. Look here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=60611404&postcount=129
You still need root, Link2SD and the scripts I linked to in my post. And Tasker is highly recommended! Or any other App that can trigger shell commands on bootup. Also create two primary partitions on your stick. The first has to be fat32 (can be small if you don’t intend to use the FTV’s native Move2USB) and the second ext4.
It may look like a lot of work, but it’s simply loading the files on the FTV (done with an included script), running one script on the FTV and then setting up Tasker.
Something similar just happened to me. Rooted fire TV, previously used Stick Mount to mount my exFat USB drive with no problems. Updated and plugged in my drive, got the message asking me to format. Canceled. USB drive seemed to be recognized, but no files found. Now the drive has been corrupted. Windows reports “The drive is not accessible. The parameter is not correct.”
I’m trying to use my usb hub. For some reason its not working on my aftv. I’m trying to connect my xbox360 controller, along with my mouse and external hard drive. I un power it before I plug in my usb hub but it doesn’t detect anything once it boots up.
Make sure usb debugging is disabled. Sometimes a different usb hub will work better. I have a 7port usb hub and it doesn’t work most of the time while my 4port usb hub always works.
This was my problem all along with having a harmony remote pass on IR to a flirc device connected to my usb on the AFTV. Thanks!
Please help.
In the application manager, I selected kodi to “move to usb storage”.
And now when I open kodi, none of the add-ons are visible. How can I fix this? Is it possible to undo the damage?
Thanks!
…or rather, they are visible, but either don’t load, or load into a blank window with no options to select.
If you use an app called ES File Explorer you can move files/folders wherever you like. You just need to move the add-ons to the rest of the Kodi folder.
Just make sure to *enable* View hidden folders in the ES File Explorer settings.
I believe they are in .android/kodi/addons or something to that effect. Cut and paste to the USB stick Kodi folder and reboot. They should show up at that point. Good luck.
Just wanted a little clarification: “Can I load emulator ROMS on a USB flash drive and access them from sideloaded emulators on the AFTV?”
I am 99% sure you can. Just direct the emulator to the correct location (on the USB stick) and they will load just fine.
I ordered a 64GB stick just for this use.
The only one I can’t seem to get to work is Mame4Droid. I can’t get it to write the path ( USB in ftv box2 using es file explorer) . I installed Mame4Droid emulator….clicked ‘no’ for default roms path….clicked storage…then usbotg…then mame4droid…then roms.
thats when I get can’t find/write error!
(This way worked with SD Card)
Does anyone know what I did wrong or a work around?
formatted my amazon tv reinstalled everything now usb drive doesnt recognise works on laptop and everything else any ideas or help or anyone have this issue
This information is wrong:
————————-
“Even 2.5 inch portable hard drives, which normally do not require external power when used with a computer, cannot be powered by the Fire TV’s USB port.”
I have been using this drive with the AFTV USB port since day 1 without any issues:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FRHTTIU/
I use the following apps:
>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.stickmount
>> http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/app-samba-filesharing-server-android-t2803452/post53869540#post53869540
I can read/write locally and from my network to the 2.5″ drive attached directly to the AFTV’s USB port without ANY ISSUES. I’ve been doing this since Nov’2014.
This information is wrong:
————————-
“The Fire TV will only mount the first USB drive it detects.”
I bought my sister an Amazon USB hub and her AFTV has 5 3.5″ HDD’s attached to it and all are being read/written to just fine from Kodi.
The information in this post refers only to Amazon’s official USB support. Not unofficial methods of accessing USB storage, like Stickmount.
Hi,
Does this method still work just got a fire tv box I’m based in the UK.
Many thanks
Mike
Thank you for this post! This article initially turned me off multiple external drives and hubs. Glad to know this works!
But you need a rooted FireTV for this, do you?
Just picked up a AFTV and took it back because I thought something was wrong with the USB port. I have a few AFTV. Some rooted and some not rooted. All of my AFTV with older firmware rooted or not will allow me to plug a wireless mouse and or keyboard. The box with the newer firmware will not detect wireless devices or flash thumb drives. I’ve even gone as far as hardware rooting this newer box and stickmount will not even detect a drive.
Found more info for anyone else looking. Looks like after doing a hardware mod you have to downgrade, add custom recovery, and install rooted firmware. Can’t just do the hardware mod anymore.
does this new update allow me to use a flash drive on a fire stick? as the usb port is needed for power would a splitter work/ powered hub etc? anyone had any joy?
You cannot use a flash drive on a fire stick. Not without at least doing some serious hardware mod.
I purchased one of the suggested “PNY Turbo 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive – P-FD64GTBOP-GE” I plug it in and it recognizes it and everything seem find. But when I try to move apps or install new apps it fails. I am so frustrated and don’t know what to do I have been reading through message boards and been looking all over for something similar experienced by someone else.. Nota! Any ideas or point me somewhere that I might be able to find help
?
Anyone figure out how to keep stickmount from stealing the USB thumb drive from the Fire TV?
Stickmount works fine for the external hard drive, as I need for Kodi, but I want to exclude the thumb drive. The first time the thumb drive was plugged in it showed fine in the Fire TV settings. But, on reboot, Stickmount takes it as its own and moves it to /sdb1…
I don’t see a Stickmount setting to exclude particular drives. THAT would be useful!
all i want to use this box for is kodi what can I delete of amazon fire stuff to make more internal space for kodi films…If not which flash drive is best ??..oh & how do you delete it
I hooked up a WD Elements 1TB 3.0 directly to the back of the Fire TV and using KODI I was able to watch all my video files with ZERO ISSUES!
Does it have its own power supply or does it a portable one? I’m trying to get my set up with Kodi and having difficulties.
What 1.5 External Hard drive did you use? I’m having trouble having the Fire TV to recognize my external.
hi, i backed up a back up of kodi on usb from my old box then connected my new box to restore the kodi backup but the new box isnt recognizing my usb at all. but it recognizes it in the old box, any ideas why not in the new box? is it to do with me blocking the updates
VLC and Avia Media Player appear to no longer be available for Fire TV. Are there any other apps that can play media files from external storage?
My new 4k FTV will not see anything I plug in over USB
My new 4k is not seeing any external drives, has it been disabled?
Amazon has removed USB Media Storage capability for the time being. They’ll not support NTFS (or any other then FAT32) ever. They have removed VLC/AVI Player (and KODI/XBMC) from the PlayStore and those won’t come back.
The box is highly subsidized through the anticipated use of Streaming Amazon Media Content and purchases from the PlayStore and they will NOT support competition nor will they support pirated content through support of HD content on external Media (>8GiB H264). Face it, swallow it!
If you have a streaming capable infrastructure at home you’ll be fine with some inconvenience (like the need to sideload Kodi and starting Kodi via tricks; which eventually will get sabotaged from time to time through updates).
Get yourself a cheap NAS or connect your USB storage to your IN Router (shouldn’t connect directly to the IN anyway). Next time you exchange your router get a model which supports external USB Storage sharing (just an example Asus RT series, most new routers do support shares).
Face it swallow it? charming, and stream? sorry I have too many brain cells to live with that garbage loss of quality
What I do not get is why have the USB slot in the first place?
There must be something that can be done to get the FIRE TV to recognize the USB Flash drive!
My fire TV is able to detect a mouse with no issue, but refuses to detect any flash drive I insert. I am tired of spending money on drives just to find out they do not work.
I would check your AFTV Developer settings. USB Flash Drive wasn’t detected until I ADB Debug function.
http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-enable-adb-debugging-on-an-amazon-fire-tv-or-fire-tv-stick/
Does anyone know how to delete a downloaded movie on my internal hard drive on my Amazon fire tv
Yes. You should use ES File Explorer. Otherwise, you can follow this steps:
command line
adb kill-server
adb connect
adb shell
then in the shell mode, you need to find the directory where you have downloaded the file:
cd sdcard/Download (i.e.)
then delete the file with the command rm
example: rm TheMartian2015.avi
Is it possible to share the mounted hdd on one after with a second firetv stick over wifi? In other words, is it possible to map the external hdd in a network?
I am trying to figure it out. The only way I know to access the drive over the network is through the adb shell command-line.
How do you eject the usb drive? I went to setting systems storage but there is no way or place to eject it safely!
hi im trying to download tv and movies to my usb on kodi fire tv it says its downloading but when i go to look the is no video there can any one help
can somebody please confirm if the amazon fire tv box WONT recognize usb drives anymore ?
my box is at version 51.1.42 514015320
Hello
I try to connect a HDD 320G (self powered hub) formatted in FAT32 to amazon fire, and he see that something connect, but seems not accept the format for mounting.
It was a disk formatted in NTFS, that I convert to FAT32 using AOMEI free partition assistant.
amazon fire in latest firmware
could it be that there are different kind of FAT32 ?
any idea whats the problem ?
thanks
mickey
just bought a new 4k box and it wont recognise my fat32 formatted passport drive that usedto work fine in the older 1st gen box! Anyone have an idea
I recently purchased a SanDisk Ultra fit USB 3.0 flash drive 16 gigabyte speed up to 1:30 MB /s and my Amazon Fire TV box will not recognize it, is there a reason why this is not working for me? Please someone help!!
Thank you in advance
Oh I forgot to say it is the first generation Amazon Fire TV box
I figured it out thanks anyway
How did you figure it out Anthony? My Fire TV box just won’t recognise the external drive at all.
Hi I wonder if anyone can help. I have been trying to connect my 250gb hdd, I formatted it to fat32 and when i checked this on my pc it shows fat32. however when i connect it to the ftv box it says that it isnt fat32. I also noticed that others have said that ftv gives an option to format the drive, this option doesnt show up for me. The box is not rooted. Sorry if there is something simple I am missing but I am new to this.
Many thanks.
Shit, the latest version of windows will not even format drives to FAT32. Only NTFS and exFat. Is the fat32 thing a hardware or software limitation of the FTV2?
I’m trying to set up a USB Ethernet adapter to the Fire TV 3rd gen with Kodi. No option for USB shows up under Device>Developer Options so the Fire TV is not recognizing the Ethernet adapter. How do I get the option to show back up. It’s suppose to be under Developer Options.
Any help would be appreciated.
Amazon Firexxx won’t allow USB storage.
But, I always leave my home computer running.
In Windows, I created folders Kodi/Movies and Kodi/TV Shows. Then, I did Properties/Sharing on the E:/Kodi folder and gave “everyone” read/write.
Next, I opened Kodi on the Fire-TV and went into Settings/Network (some such place) and changed the Workgroup to the one I use and said that the WINS server is …name of my PC. Then rebooted Fire-TV.
Lastly, I went into Exodus/Tools/Downloads/Movies and chose SMB as the storage and there was my PC name, then Kodi. Repeated for TV Shows.
Now, you can open a movie, check for sources, find one that works, stop, then right click that source and tell it to download. To watch later: Exodus/Downloads.
These instructions may not be perfect, I’m typing off the top of my head.
This is great informan, thanks!
Blueray or 5.1 movies stored in the USB drive attached to AFTV can played well using VLC or Kodi but the AVR doesnt recognise the sound to be dolby ot dts.
is there any any setting so that the movie played on AFTV stored on flash drive can detect as dolby or dts.
I have formatted a 1 terabyte usb drive to fat 32 using Rufus. I continue to get a message when formatting this on my firestick for device storage. It comes back and says there was an error reading the drive. Any idea why that may be? Is is the size?
I let my fire tv stick lite format the drive.
Sandisk 256GB USB3 flash drive will not read on firestick. Have a 128GB on order to see if it works….
(have a small 7GB USB2 flash drive that reads just fine)
I’ve got a 470GB SSD on my fire tv lite stick, but only about 900MB is used because many apps don’t have the option to move them to external storage. USB2 drives are so slow that they are practically unusable. You will notice a difference loading apps with non SSD USB3 drives. Don’t waste your time on anything but a USB3 SSD drive.
i don’t understand why my stick won’t read this 256GB then. not sure what else to try st this point. hopefully it’ll read the 128GB when it’s delivered.
You might want to try a disk utility that will write zeros to the drive so that the fire tv can’t detect any previous formatting.
What kind of moron makes a tv with a USB port that only supports a file system too small to hold HD movies
I have a couple of OTG cables for firestick and three 4k Firesticks and one firestick max. None of the will detect any usb device, usb thumbdrives (FAT32), mouse or keyboard.
Am I doing something wrong? I used to be able to get it to work , like a year ago. Ive tried connecting a non powered usb hub and that lights up but nothing detected when inserted into that. When the keyboard is plugged in , no caps lock led shows. Ive tried multiple charger plugs.
Any ideas?