Hard Drive Compatibility with Television
Thomas
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Thomas -
Thomas -
Hello,
I am turning to the CCM community because I am about to purchase a "Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt 1To" external hard drive.
But I am a big fan of movies and series, and I would like to know if it is compatible with a television via a USB connection that I have on my TV and that the drive is also equipped with?
Because I don't want to have the unpleasant surprise of having a functional hard drive on the computer but that doesn't work on the TV...
Thank you in advance for your replies.
Configuration: Macintosh / Safari 10.0.2
I am turning to the CCM community because I am about to purchase a "Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt 1To" external hard drive.
But I am a big fan of movies and series, and I would like to know if it is compatible with a television via a USB connection that I have on my TV and that the drive is also equipped with?
Because I don't want to have the unpleasant surprise of having a functional hard drive on the computer but that doesn't work on the TV...
Thank you in advance for your replies.
Configuration: Macintosh / Safari 10.0.2
2 answers
Hello Thomas :)
Generally, external hard drives could be very well detected and functional on TVs when connected via USB. However, it would be wise to see what the TV manual says :) If you keep the TV documentation, I highly recommend taking a look to check for any specific considerations. Pay attention to the file system (format) that the TV supports for USB drives to be connected. Depending on this information, you may need to reformat the external hard drive (if necessary) for use with the television.
Still talking about the file system (format) for hard drives, your message signature indicates that you are on MAC. Remember that if you plan to use this hard drive on both MAC and TV, the format of the hard drive should also take into account the file systems that MAC OS supports (FAT32, exFAT, HFS, etc.)
@Thomas, I am not familiar with the product you have chosen (I am an official WD representative), but in my opinion, there shouldn’t be any issues. Once the hard drive is acquired, just select the right format to take advantage of it :)
If you come back here, please let me know what information you have gathered from the TV documentation. We can then examine the concrete possibilities (format to choose) available :)
Have a great day and @+!
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If you found the answer to your question, feel free to click on Resolved to help other members with the same issue ;)
Generally, external hard drives could be very well detected and functional on TVs when connected via USB. However, it would be wise to see what the TV manual says :) If you keep the TV documentation, I highly recommend taking a look to check for any specific considerations. Pay attention to the file system (format) that the TV supports for USB drives to be connected. Depending on this information, you may need to reformat the external hard drive (if necessary) for use with the television.
Still talking about the file system (format) for hard drives, your message signature indicates that you are on MAC. Remember that if you plan to use this hard drive on both MAC and TV, the format of the hard drive should also take into account the file systems that MAC OS supports (FAT32, exFAT, HFS, etc.)
@Thomas, I am not familiar with the product you have chosen (I am an official WD representative), but in my opinion, there shouldn’t be any issues. Once the hard drive is acquired, just select the right format to take advantage of it :)
If you come back here, please let me know what information you have gathered from the TV documentation. We can then examine the concrete possibilities (format to choose) available :)
Have a great day and @+!
-----
If you found the answer to your question, feel free to click on Resolved to help other members with the same issue ;)
Following your advice, I looked into the USB connections of my television, but I found nothing relevant apart from the fact that it has 3 USB ports (which I already knew).
That said, I researched the file system of my TV as you mentioned, and here is what I found:
"USB devices compatible with Media Play are mass storage devices (MSC) such as USB flash drives, external hard drives, or Flash card readers. The file system of your device must be FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS to work with Media Play." Source: samsung.com
I then went to LaCie to learn more about the file system of the disk, as you suggested, and I found that you can format your hard drive in 3 different ways: HFS+, exFAT, and FAT32.
I deduce that the disk must be FAT32 for it to work, but the problem is that I've also seen that this file system can harm the performance of the hard drive?
So I'm completely lost... If there really isn't a solution, I'll manage, it’s nothing serious!
Thank you for taking the time to respond
Indeed, if the TV supports NTFS and the external hard drive you chose is also NTFS (which I assume it is, since it's the native format for Windows), I don't think it would even be necessary to reformat it to FAT32. However, you need to make sure that the hard drive is equipped with USB.
As for the FAT32 format, it is true that this file system has certain limitations (the file size cannot exceed 4GB, this file system runs slower than NTFS, etc.). Here are the details: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yz0RpY
To summarize a bit: there is always a solution ;) The format of a hard drive can be changed at any time.
There you go :) Happy Friday and see you later!