Do Enclosures work with the WD TV Live Hub Media Player?

Hi, I own a WD TV Live Hub Media Player and I have external hard drives plugged into it which works great. I purchased an 8 bay Sans digital JBOD Enclosure and I have it filled with 3 TB Hard Drives. I have the enclosure connected to my PC running Windows 7. I was wondering, would connecting the enclosure to the WD TV Live Hub work? I would like to ditch the externals and go with one main media drive. if it won’t work,  is there any way to get it working? (Firmware update? streaming perhaps?) How would I set that up? Any info is greatly appreciated.

Share the drives with Windows 7 and they will appear on the Hub after a full restart of the Hub. :slight_smile:

Thank you! I have a few questions: How’s performance in terms of movie playback when streaming to the media player? any stuttering or slowdown? my PC is upstairs and it’s connected to my Modem by ethernet downstairs. My PC is running Windows 7. I have my enclosure connected to my PC. I do not access the internet wirelessly on my PC, it’s a wired setup. I have my TV downstairs in the living room connected to the Media Player. How do I share the drives? Do I have to enable permissions or do I just share each drive? Can sharing the drives on the enclosure cause any issues to my drives or is it safe to do? Any help is greatly appreciated

Hello SLR2009
Sharing your enclosure through a computer is definitely not the best way to go. In order for your enclosure to be accessible you need to keep your computer at all time. I would suggest you get a gigabyte capable router and connect the computer, the NAS enclosure and the WDTV live hub to it. This way your enclosure will be accessible at all time with max bandwidth which is best especially when streaming 1080p movies.
As for your enclosure, if you setup all hard drives in a raid configuration, the hub will only see one drive. So if you have movies, TV Series and musics stored on it, they will all show in one folder. It is best to setup the hard drive as individual drive, this way the hub will see 8 individual folders.

All this is based on personal experience and result might be different for you. But I still believe getting a gigabyte capable router is the best way to go.

Hope this help a bit. If you need more info, please ask.

Hi, I appreciate the advice! 

I keep my PC on all the time :wink:. My Sans digital Enclosure is a JBOD so when it’s connected to my PC, all 8 drives show up individually, not as one massive drive.

I beleive my Verizon Fios Modem/Router supports gigabyte.

If I enable sharing on all the drives on my enclosure and stream it to my media player will playback be stuttering or slow performance? I believe I have my PC connected to my Router using Cat 6 and Cat 6 from my router to my media player.

That depends on your network and on your files.

Almost universally, people have no stuttering issues with a wired connection and files with bitrates less than 20mbit/s.

If you’re trying to play 50mbit/s files, you’re likely to run into stuttering over any Samba connection… you’d generally either need to play the files from attached/local storage, or re-encode them with a better compression scheme.

Thanks guys. Question: How do I enable sharing of my drives? Do I go to My Computer and just right click on each drive and click “Enable Sharing” or is there more to it in order for the drives to show up on the Media Player?

Do NOT share the entire drive if it is your C:\ drive. That would expose all of its contents to everyone on your network. It’s best to share only the folders with media in them and not the entire drive.

I appreciate the advice. The drives that I want to share are in my Sans digital enclosure, not my C: Drive. It would be a bad idea to share those drives? When you say that it would expose all of it’s contets to everyone on my network do you mean in my house or in my neighborhood locally. I’m the only one who uses a computer in my home.

Would a Nas have been a better idea than the enclosure I have? Thanks for the help

If all your media is going to be in the drives in the ENCLOSURE, and you won’t be needing to access those constantly on the PC, then the easiest, fastest, and most reliable thing for you to do is directly connect the USB enclosure with all the drives right into the USB port on the back of the WD TV Live Hub. I don’t know if you’ll be adding or re-arranging media on a constant basis, but connecting the USB enclosure directly to the HUB is the best way. If you’re only going to need add media or need to access it with the PC very occasionally, not on a daily basis, then you can just disconnect the USB cable from the Hub and plug it back into your PC and change/add whatever you need, and then plug it back into the HUB. If you’re dealing with relatively small files that you plan to transfer on to the drives in the enclosure, you can access the external USB drive that is connected to the hub WHILE it is still connected to the hub. If you just go into your Network Places from either the Start menu or from My Computer. Open up My Computer, then on the left there will be a pane with a list of your libraries and such. It will look something like this:

*(beginning of list)

Favorites

     Desktop

     Downloads

     Recent Places

Libraries

     Documents

     Music

     Pictures

     Videos

Homegroup

Computer

     Local Disk (C:)

     Other Hard drives

     Optical (CD/DVD) Drives

     Removeable Media/Flash Drives

Network

*(end of list)

You want to click on Network, which is the last item in the list on the left of the window, and that will take you to your Network Places. Click on it and it will show you all the active devices on your network. Other computers and network drives will be listed on the top part of the screen. Then will be listed your network Media Devices, and under that, any other miscellaneous devices on the network. On the top of the box that shows all the network devices, the first “tab” or “section” that says Computer (#) where # is the total number of other computers, network drives, or similar devices on your network. In that list (under Computer heading in the Network places), you will see the device labeled WDTVLIVEHUB. That means that the Hub is showing up as a network device with storage (same thing as a computer with a shared network drive). If you double click on that, it will take you into the next level of the device to where all the shared drives are. You will always see a shared folder called WDTVLiveHub here, and that is referring to the internal drive on the Live Hub, which shows up as a network drive. Your external enclosure, if it is connected to the hub, will show up in this same window (right next to the WDTVLiveHub shared folder, but if not, then it will be inside the WDTVLiveHub folder). When you’re here, inside the WDTVLIVEHUB network shares after double-clicking on the WD Hub device in Network places, all the shared folders (the internal drive on the Hub AS WELL AS your external enclosure drive) will be accessible just as if they were drives connected to your computer. That means you can drag and drop files into them, delete things, move stuff around, change folders, and do anything else at all that you could do with a normal drive attached to your computer. The HUB automatically turns its internal drive and all attached drives into network drives.

If the HUB doesn’t show up in Network or you can’t access the drives connected to it, turn on the Hub, go into Setup–>Network Settings–>Network Share Server and turn the Network Share Server option to ON. I think it automatically should be set to ON when you get it new, but if it’s not showing up then just manually go to the settings and turn it on.

So, once you’ve accessed it like this, you can add your new files either to the Hub’s internal drive or to the USB drive enclosure you’ve got connected to the HUB. The only issue this might present is that file transfer to and from the HUB can be kind of slow. The device isn’t slow and it streams media at really high speeds perfectly, but the file transfer itself just is a little slow (around 10-15 megabytes per second usually). The only time this will be a problem is if you need to transfer REALLY BIG files like Bluray rips or tons of music and you need it done FAST and right away. If you want to do this all super fast, then the best thing to do is connect the USB enclosure directly into a USB port on your computer and transfer your media onto the drives from there, and then plug the USB drive/enclosure back into the HUB.

I would not suggest plugging the USB drive into your PC and sharing it from there and having the Hub access it over the network because this requires that all network traffic will go through your computer, and more connections in between the source and the receiver means a loss in speed and reliability. You’ll have the USB Enclosure–>Computer–>software share–>out from computer–>Ethernet Router/Switch–>WDTVHub. Another major problem that you get by connecting the USB drive to the computer and sharing it is that you can only access the drive while the PC is on. The PC can’t share the drive while it’s off, so every time you want to watch a movie or listen to music or do anything related to the media on the USB enclosure when you’re sharing it from the PC, your computer will have to be on. That is very inconvenient. And I didn’t see in the post, but if your computer is using WiFi (wireless internet) and not plugged into your Router/Switch via Ethernet, then your share speeds would **bleep** even more and I doubt it would be able to handle large video streams. So keeping it plugged into your PC and sharing the drive through your computer is the worst choice. Also, since it is a software share, there are often bugs or little problems that prevent you from accessing or reading the share from any device that isn’t the computer that’s doing the share itself. I used to have this, tried a bunch of computers and different drives, it’s always the least reliable because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and when it works, it’s slow and drops out often.

Now we come to the option of using a NAS. If you are going to access all your drives from multiple computers/devices, then a NAS is the best way to go. You can have a NAS somewhere on your network (make sure to get a fast one with at least a Gigabit (1000mb/s) ethernet connection) and be able to access it at full speed from your PC AND from your Hub. Gigabit ethernet, in theory and my experience, will give you faster transfer speeds (if you get a good quality NAS) because its cap is much higher than that of USB 2.0. If you get a NAS, you can copy or rip or download all the movies or music you want on your computer, transfer it to the NAS (or you can even set up all your stuff to automatically download or rip or whatever directly to your NAS, because your PC can use the NAS like a built-in internal hard drive if you map it as a network drive in My Computer). So with this setup, you’ll do whatever you need to get your media, then transfer it at full speed to your NAS, and then be able to access everything that’s on the NAS from your WDTV Hub, just like as if it was a USB enclosure drive directly connected to the Hub’s USB port.

Now you said that you’re the only person in the house who has a computer, so the NAS probably isn’t the NECESSARY solution, though it will suit your needs perfectly and if you ever get another WDTV somewhere else in the house or if someone else gets a computer and wants to watch your stuff, they can.

When the other poster said that sharing would expose your stuff, I’m not sure what they were talking to. The only thing that it would be exposed to is your own immediate network. That means that ONLY the computers that are connected to your router will be able to see any of that stuff, and even so, you can limit who can see it and for even more security, you can put a password on all the shares. There is no way for your stuff to get out to the local neighborhood.

So here are the choices, and it’s up to you.

  1. Keep the USB enclosure+drive connected to the HUB at all times and access it from your PC through Network when you want to add/remove/change files. [This is the most convenient and stable option]

  2. Keep the USB enclosure+drive connected to the HUB at all times, except when you want to transfer LARGE or MANY files, in which case you unplug the drive from the HUB, plug it into the computer’s USB, transfer the files, then plug it back into the HUB. [A little less convenient but very stable. Good option if you need to transfer large amounts of data once in a while]

  3. Keep your USB drive/enclosure plugged into your computer’s USB port, and share it through Windows. [Worst option because it is slowest, inconvenient, unreliable, and a hassle to set up and maintain. All data has to be routed through the computer, so the computer has to be on AT ALL TIMES. Also, the software sharing is unreliable and sometimes randomly drops out for no reason and is very hard to troubleshoot and fix because there are way too many factors that could contribute to the error]

4*. Use a NAS connected with Gigabit ethernet. [Best option if you will add/remove/change both large files and small files. Allows for future expansion, access your media from multiple devices/computers, rock-solid stability, and the very high speed of Gigabit ethernet]

*the NAS option is my personal favorite, after having experimented with all the other options. I tried all the first 3 options for about two years with my older WDTV Live and Live+ units, and finally decided to use the NAS and it’s been working absolutely perfectly since then, and keeps on going strong with the addition of the WDTV Live Hub. Because of the NAS, I have the Hub connected to the TV in my bedroom, the Live+ on the TV in the TV room, and the Live in the grandparents/guest room. People can be watching full 45GB HD Bluray rips with surround sound in ALL 3 ROOMS AT THE SAME TIME on their TV’s through the WDTV units, because the NAS is so fast and I’ve never had any trouble or drop-outs at all in the 4 years I’ve owned it. I also use the NAS for general backup, which is a great option as well to keep your documents and data safe. But of course, media is the main use. As for the “issue” of security, that’s not really anything to worry about. If you use wireless internet, just keep a password on it like you would normally use with any and all networks. If it’s wired with ethernet, then you have nothing to worry about.

OK sorry for the very long post. I hope that this information helps. Let us know if you’ve got any other questions.

SLR2009 wrote:

I appreciate the advice. The drives that I want to share are in my Sans digital enclosure, not my C: Drive. It would be a bad idea to share those drives? When you say that it would expose all of it’s contets to everyone on my network do you mean in my house or in my neighborhood locally. I’m the only one who uses a computer in my home.

 

Would a Nas have been a better idea than the enclosure I have? Thanks for the help

Sharing exposes the shared content to everyone on YOUR network. If it is not secured, then anyone can access your network wirelessly (assuming you’re using wireless), including neighbors close enough to see your wireless router broadcast. If you’re sharing movies on your network your kids will have access to them, as well, regardless of any content protections you set on the Live Hub. Keeping all the content you want to share off your C: drive and on a separate drive is a good idea, but if you’re the only user then you have little to worry about.

WOW! Great Post! Thanks Guys!

I have a question that I hope you can help me with: I was under the impression that the WD TV Live Hub doesn’t support enclosures when directly connected to the WD TV Live Hub. I thought that only external hard drives can be direclty connected to the media player. Am I wrong?

I have WPA2 enabled on my router witha password, does that mean that I’m secure?

SLR2009 wrote:

 

I have WPA2 enabled on my router witha password, does that mean that I’m secure?

Reasonably so.:wink:

Anyone care to answer my first question? I would greatly appreciate it.

Today, to find out your answer, I borrowed an external hard drive, a USB 2.0 enclosure for SATA hard drive that I put my own 2TB hard drive into, and a USB 2.0 RAID enclosure with 2x2TB hard drives that I put into it. There’s the external hard drive and then both different types of enclosures just to test every possible option for you, SLR.

The conclusion:

  1. The external hard drive worked right out of the box, no formatting or anything (maybe this was pre-formatted), just plugged it into the HUB and was good to go, recognized instantly.

  2. The 3rd party enclosure that I put my own hard drive into had to first be connected to my PC obviously to format it, and then it worked plug-and-play perfectly with the Live Hub.

  3. Pretty much the same thing for the RAID multi-drive enclosure that I used with my own hard drives. It had to be connected to my PC at first to build the RAID volume and format the drives, but after that, they worked perfectly just like with option 2 above, perfectly, plug-and-play on the Hub.

Does that answer your question?

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Thanks for answering my question :stuck_out_tongue:. I greatly appreciate it :slight_smile: I have a few questions and concerns that I hope you can help me with. Will my 8 3TB drives show up individually on the WD TV Live Hub Media Player when the enclosure is directly connected to it? I’m just curious but Is there any website that states that the WD TV Live Hub officially supports physically connecting enclosures to them?

I just want to make certain that my 8 bay JBOD enclosure will work with my WD TV Live Hub Media Player and that it won’t cause any corruption to the enclosures data. Awhile back there was an issue with the WD Media Players where plugging 3 TB External hard drives into the WD Media Player would cause corruption to the data on the external. I’m concerened because my enclosure holds 3 TB drives.

I read that there was an update on the WD TV Live that removed the capabilty of plugging in an enclosure into the Media Player. Does that pertain to just the WD TV Live or the WD TV Live Hub as well? Here’s the article: http://www.icydock.com/icy_tip/559_561_wdtv_media_solution.html read the text in red at the very bottom of the article.

Any help is greatly appreciated

Hi.
The article you refered to is about USB external hard drive. Your NAS will be accessed through the Ethernet. You will not have any problems.

 Will my 8 3TB drives show up individually on the WD TV Live Hub Media Player when the enclosure is directly connected to it?

That depends on the enclosure, and on how you’ve set it up.

If the enclosure presents the 8 drives as 8 separate volumes, then only one of them will be seen if connected directly to the WDTV via USB (but there are no restrictions if accessed over the network).

If the enclosure spans one single volume across the 8 drives, then it should work fine, as long as your firmware is reasonably up to date and GPT drives are supported.

I read that there was an update on the WD TV Live that removed the capabilty of plugging in an enclosure into the Media Player. Does that pertain to just the WD TV Live or the WD TV Live Hub as well? Here’s the article: http://www.icydock.com/icy_tip/559_561_wdtv_media_solution.html read the text in red at the very bottom of the article.

As far as I know, that limitation still exists across the entire current line of products.  People were getting corruption because the USB port simply doesn’t have the power to run multiple drives, so to protect the users WD removed the ability to enumerate more than one drive per port.  (But the statement that “USB hubs are not supported” isn’t quite true – you can generally use a hub to attach a USB drive, a USB wifi dongle and a USB keyboard all to one single port – you just can’t connect multiple drives to the same port.)

I believe WD has expressed intentions of allowing multiple drive enumeration per port on the WDTV Live Hub (but not the WDTV Live/WDTV Live Plus) in a future firmware update, but as far as I know multiple drive enumeration is still currently blocked on the Live Hub, which is why your JBOD array would have to present the enclosure as one single volume.

Thank you for such valuable information :stuck_out_tongue:. You’ve answered the exact question that I needed answered. Thanks guys!

On my  8 Bay JBOD Sans Digital Enclosure all 8 drives show up individually when connected to my PC.

I guess then if I want all 8 drives (on my 8 bay JBOD Enclosure) to show up individually on my WD TV Live Hub then my only option is to have the 8 bay enclsoure connected to my PC and have it stream to my WD TV Live Hub Downstairs? Anyone have success with doing just that? any issues that I may run into? Does the WD TV Live Hub officially support that? Any other alternatives?

I appreciate the help