USB port on the Fire TV Cube 3 has been updated to now remain powered while asleep

One issue with the 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube that was causing a bit of headache among enthusiasts was Amazon’s decision to cut power to the device’s USB port when the Cube went to sleep. Among other issues, this prevented the use of faster external Ethernet adapters to remain functional while the Fire TV Cube was not being used. Amazon has now informed me that this issue has been corrected through a recent software update. I tested it and, sure enough, the USB port on the Fire TV Cube 3 now remains powered while the device is asleep.

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Fire TV Cube 3 is the first Fire TV to support NTFS External USB Drives by default

In an unexpected move, Amazon has added support for NTFS USB drives to the 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube. This is surprising because no Fire TV device in the past has ever supported NTFS formatted storage drives. Whether they were a Fire TV, Fire TV Cube, Fire TV Stick, or Fire TV Smart TV, they all only supported FAT32 drives out of the box and required some complex manipulation to support any other drive format. Read more ›

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USB port on the Fire TV Cube 3 loses power when the device is alseep, causing issues with external Gigabit Ethernet adapters and more

One great change with the 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube, compared to both previous models, is the inclusion of a full-sized USB-A port whereas the old models used a micro USB port. This eliminates the need to use an OTG cable for connecting the vast majority of USB drives and peripherals. The other change Amazon has done with the new Cube’s USB port, which is unlike the past models, is cutting off all power to the port when the Fire TV Cube goes to sleep, whereas the older Cube models kept the port powered all the time. This change can be beneficial to some for automatically turning off external devices when the Fire TV Cube isn’t being used, but it’s proving to be an annoyance for others, such as those using external Gigabit Ethernet adapters for additional wired network speed. Read more ›

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Fire TV Cube 3 comes with a built-in media player for Videos, Photos, and Music stored on External USB Storage

The 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube is far from the first Fire TV model to officially supports external USB media, but it is the first to include a built-in media player app from Amazon that can display videos, photos, and play audio files. This is the same app found on nearly all Fire TV Smart TVs, but this is the first Amazon has included it on one of its stand-alone Fire TVs. While it’s certainly not going to replace full-fledged media players like Plex, MrMC, or even VLC, it’s definitely handy to have for quick and simple access to your media files. Read more ›

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Fire TV Stick 4K Max fully supports External USB Storage with ease

One big unadvertised but significant difference between the Fire TV Stick 4K Max and the original Fire TV Stick 4K is how each one handles external USB storage. With the original Firestick 4K, you can connect a drive using an OTG cable and access files on that drive through 3rd-party apps, but the Fire TV operating system ignores the drive entirely. With the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, external drives are fully supported, meaning, you can mount, format, and eject the drives. Most importantly, you can also use external drives to expand the device’s internal storage and move apps to the external drive. Read more ›

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How to add External USB OTG Storage and Move Apps on the Fire TV Stick Lite, Fire TV Stick 3, and Fire TV Cube


In Amazon’s current lineup of Fire TV models, the 2020 Fire TV Stick Lite, 2020 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick, and the Fire TV Cube (both 1st and 2nd-gen) support expanding their internal storage through the use of an external USB drive. Doing so allows you to move supported apps onto the external storage device to free up space on the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Cube’s internal storage space. The Fire TV Stick 4K, while it does support external USB devices to some extent, does not currently support moving apps to external storage. Here are what accessories you need for external storage, instucritions for how to configure your Fire TV device correctly, and how to move apps off of the internal storage. Read more ›

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Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K supports external USB drives and USB peripherals via an OTG cable

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K doesn’t officially support connecting anything to it except Amazon’s Fire TV Ethernet Adapter, but, using an inexpensive OTG cable it’s possible to use USB peripherals, such as keyboards and wired gamepads, as well as external USB drives. The support for USB drives, in particular, isn’t as thorough as the Fire TV Cube, which does officially support external storage, but it’s much better than the Fire TV 3 (pendant), which the Fire TV Stick 4K has replaced, so it’s a step in the right direction. Read more ›

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Fire TV Edition televisions can access SD Card and USB Drive simultaneously, but not two USB Drives

The SD Card slot on the Element Fire TV Edition televisions is treated as the primary port for external storage, since it’s the only one that can be used to store apps, however, a USB drive connected to the USB port is just as accessible from within 3rd-party apps. The only catch is that you cannot have a USB Drive connected to each of the two USB ports simultaneously. Read more ›

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Amazon Fire TV Edition televisions use SD Cards for external app storage — Not USB drives

The Element Fire TV Edition televisions have a full-sized SD card slot, as well as a pair of USB ports, where one is USB 2.0 and the other is USB 3.0 speeds. It was expected that only the SD card slot would be used for external app storage, since that’s the way the Fire TV 2 works with its microSD card slot. I can confirm that only the SD card slot on the television is available for external app storage. The television does recognize when you connect USB drives, but warns you that they cannot be used to store apps, like the Fire TV 1 can do. Files can be accessed through either the SD card or a USB drive via 3rd-party apps, like media players (e.g., Kodi, MrMC, SPMC, VLC, etc..) or file managers, but only the former can store apps to augment the Fire TV Edition televisions 16GB of internal storage.

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Amazon Fire TV Stick 2 supports USB Storage, Keyboards/Mice, and Ethernet Adapters via USB OTG without Root

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Believe it or not, the setup you see in the above picture works. The Amazon Fire TV Stick 2 supports OTG USB cables out of the box without needing to root the device or change any configuration settings. What’s even more astonishing is that USB keyboards, USB mice, USB hubs, USB ethernet adapters, and even USB external storage all work perfectly with no extra effort or configuration whatsoever. Read more ›

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