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External storage media (hard drive, SD card, flash drive) to the Nexus 7 tablet. How to connect? Ready.... GO
SO... I'm going to be going on a trip later in the year... I don't own a fully functional laptop right now besides my work issued laptop, which I don't exactly want to take with me since, well, it's a personal trip, not a work trip. I have the Nexus 7 coming, but of course it's got 16GB of storage. I'm quickly learning with the amount of media I'd like to take with me to burn up the hours I'll be on a plane over the course of a few days, even a 64GB variant wouldn't help me.
So what I'm curious about looking into is a way to utilize the Nexus 7's micro USB port to somehow mount external media, since after all the Nexus 7 has no micro SD card slot. While this is a bit of a bummer, considering the price of the device and what else it can do, it's hardly worth crying over. With my phone (which has FAR, FAR less space) I utilize AndSMB frequently to push/pull data from my Samba server on my LAN. Thing is, I won't have a Samba server with me on an airplane.
I'm sure the first thing you'll ask is, hey wait, things like USB flash drives and external hard drives require a ton more power than what those tablet ports normally give off. Yep, got it. I'd likely be utilizing a battery powered USB hub or else an AC powered USB hub. That way with the battery powered one I could switch media on the plane (or even actively watch it off the external media) or when I have an AC port availabe, just swap the media then and there.
I've done some reading on the subject, and it leaves a lot of loopholes uncovered... most of which feels quite foreign to me. Supposedly the micro USB ports built into tablets aren't typically designed to utilize USB OTG (on the go), or host mode, which essentially allows the system to mount the media accordingly. Some users I spoke to said it's typically due to the hardware used with the USB port itself, and that a specific chip is required to do anything more than tablet-to-computer data transfers or, of course, simply charging it. Others also suggest that I would need to have a custom ROM that specifically enables certain kernel features which could pass data in the context that I'm after.
My train of thought was to utilize something like this to get started:
Then I'd be down to a regular, full size USB cable, at which point I could tack in an SD card reader (if it's low powered enough) or a powered USB hub to use with flash drives or external hard drives. Sure, this may be a little cumbersome, but it could basically allow me to utilize a 1TB external hard drive and, literally, have ALL of the media from my desktop right there available on the tablet.
Problem is... I don't know if all of this is possible. So I figured I'd post here to brew up some ideas on it. Am I asking for a miracle? Or is this actually somehow possible?
EDIT - Sounds like it's possible, pending you root the device at least. There's a super long thread on XDA regarding the issue. Towards the end of the ~30 pages they found it was possible pending the following items:
- You utilize a USB "OTG" (on the go) cable, such as this one:
Link to product: Newegg.com - 2x Micro USB OTG Host Cable For Samsung Galaxy S2 Sprint Epic 4G Touch D710
- You root your device
- You utilize a 3rd party app which handles auto mounting of OTG devices. The free app "StickMount" seems to be the most popular
Current limitations, random FYI's, etc (based on what I heard) are as follows:
- Originally, you could not play media straight off of the external storage media, and copying it locally was the preferred work around. With a recent update to StickMount this seems to be fixed. Haven't heard a comment from any other apps that may support this same functionality.
- Along with the above, I sometimes hear that VLC or "VPlayer" may be needed to play media files off of external storage media.
- It's likely, though not entirely confirmed, that heavy USB devices are likely to not be supported, such as massive external HDD's, etc. Nexus 7 owners from Google's I/O event confirmed that flash drives sized 1-32GB worked fine. That said, it stands to reason that if a powered USB hub is used, this may be workable.
- Seems as if FAT32 and NTFS have some limitations (who woulda' thought). EXT3/EXT4 are the preferred file system types for the external media.
The source: For those worried about lack of storage (USB-OTG discussion thread) - xda-developers
That said, I'm even more excited about this device now. With some upcoming trips and lengthy plane rides it will be nice knowing I can swap media around if I absolutely need. I certainly wouldn't mind having more movies than not enough on hand just in case I run into a massive layover. Truth be told, I think 16GB will be more than enough for 99% of the time I'll be using this device, and that's even coming from an IT enthused user such as myself... that said, I couldn't help but to think worst case scenario in terms of getting stuck for longer than planned somewhere. This news kind of puts a plug on that, as having a rather simple alternative to accessing other media quickly will be nice.
SO... I'm going to be going on a trip later in the year... I don't own a fully functional laptop right now besides my work issued laptop, which I don't exactly want to take with me since, well, it's a personal trip, not a work trip. I have the Nexus 7 coming, but of course it's got 16GB of storage. I'm quickly learning with the amount of media I'd like to take with me to burn up the hours I'll be on a plane over the course of a few days, even a 64GB variant wouldn't help me.
So what I'm curious about looking into is a way to utilize the Nexus 7's micro USB port to somehow mount external media, since after all the Nexus 7 has no micro SD card slot. While this is a bit of a bummer, considering the price of the device and what else it can do, it's hardly worth crying over. With my phone (which has FAR, FAR less space) I utilize AndSMB frequently to push/pull data from my Samba server on my LAN. Thing is, I won't have a Samba server with me on an airplane.
I'm sure the first thing you'll ask is, hey wait, things like USB flash drives and external hard drives require a ton more power than what those tablet ports normally give off. Yep, got it. I'd likely be utilizing a battery powered USB hub or else an AC powered USB hub. That way with the battery powered one I could switch media on the plane (or even actively watch it off the external media) or when I have an AC port availabe, just swap the media then and there.
I've done some reading on the subject, and it leaves a lot of loopholes uncovered... most of which feels quite foreign to me. Supposedly the micro USB ports built into tablets aren't typically designed to utilize USB OTG (on the go), or host mode, which essentially allows the system to mount the media accordingly. Some users I spoke to said it's typically due to the hardware used with the USB port itself, and that a specific chip is required to do anything more than tablet-to-computer data transfers or, of course, simply charging it. Others also suggest that I would need to have a custom ROM that specifically enables certain kernel features which could pass data in the context that I'm after.
My train of thought was to utilize something like this to get started:
Then I'd be down to a regular, full size USB cable, at which point I could tack in an SD card reader (if it's low powered enough) or a powered USB hub to use with flash drives or external hard drives. Sure, this may be a little cumbersome, but it could basically allow me to utilize a 1TB external hard drive and, literally, have ALL of the media from my desktop right there available on the tablet.
Problem is... I don't know if all of this is possible. So I figured I'd post here to brew up some ideas on it. Am I asking for a miracle? Or is this actually somehow possible?
EDIT - Sounds like it's possible, pending you root the device at least. There's a super long thread on XDA regarding the issue. Towards the end of the ~30 pages they found it was possible pending the following items:
- You utilize a USB "OTG" (on the go) cable, such as this one:
Link to product: Newegg.com - 2x Micro USB OTG Host Cable For Samsung Galaxy S2 Sprint Epic 4G Touch D710
- You root your device
- You utilize a 3rd party app which handles auto mounting of OTG devices. The free app "StickMount" seems to be the most popular
Current limitations, random FYI's, etc (based on what I heard) are as follows:
- Originally, you could not play media straight off of the external storage media, and copying it locally was the preferred work around. With a recent update to StickMount this seems to be fixed. Haven't heard a comment from any other apps that may support this same functionality.
- Along with the above, I sometimes hear that VLC or "VPlayer" may be needed to play media files off of external storage media.
- It's likely, though not entirely confirmed, that heavy USB devices are likely to not be supported, such as massive external HDD's, etc. Nexus 7 owners from Google's I/O event confirmed that flash drives sized 1-32GB worked fine. That said, it stands to reason that if a powered USB hub is used, this may be workable.
- Seems as if FAT32 and NTFS have some limitations (who woulda' thought). EXT3/EXT4 are the preferred file system types for the external media.
The source: For those worried about lack of storage (USB-OTG discussion thread) - xda-developers
That said, I'm even more excited about this device now. With some upcoming trips and lengthy plane rides it will be nice knowing I can swap media around if I absolutely need. I certainly wouldn't mind having more movies than not enough on hand just in case I run into a massive layover. Truth be told, I think 16GB will be more than enough for 99% of the time I'll be using this device, and that's even coming from an IT enthused user such as myself... that said, I couldn't help but to think worst case scenario in terms of getting stuck for longer than planned somewhere. This news kind of puts a plug on that, as having a rather simple alternative to accessing other media quickly will be nice.
