Ok, had to move this post from the incorrect fourm to this one. Darn WD names are confusing.
Has anyone tried plugging a usb hub into the WD TV LIve Streaming Media player and see if can support more than 2 drives at the same time? The WD Live TV with custom firmware has supported this for months now, and most other players (Popcorn Hour) already support this, so I hope they have added this with the recent firmware update.
Can somebody please confirm before I return this product? I must be able to plug more than 2 drives in at the same time.
well if it is a powered hub, perhaps it will work.
if it is a powerless hub then i couldnt see it working as the wall wort power supply with the media player probably wouldnt be strong enough to power all the drives connected.
Also in either case of powered or not the question of ejecting drives comes into play
Thanks, but that thread is for the WD Live HUB. In that post it says, " I have attached four HDDs to this simple hub and found it working after I upgraded the firmware on WDTV Live HUB to version Release 3.00.28 (11/17/11)"
I have the WD TV Live Streaming Media Player.
Can anyone confirm if a USB 4-port hub would work with my model, native firmware, no custom stuff?
ok,stop the sighing. I thought when replied before that it was for the 2009 old model of the WD Live, being you pointed out that I was in the wrong fourm.
Are you using this setup today, with standard firmware (no custom)? If yes, which brand of usb hub did you go with and how many drives do you have attached?
Also, do you use the Media Lib feature? I have it on now, but it takes forever for it to scan my drives on start-up, and that is only with 2 drives. I will be adding 2 more. While it is nice to be able to find movies quickly, the pain at start up is not worth it to me. That means I have to hunt for my movies, but oh well.
Yes, I tested it early on with four HDs attached. But it’s not my normal mode… I use a NAS instead of a bunch of USB disks.
Yes, I use the Media Library extensively.
It doesn’t scan every time you turn it on from STANDBY, but it will if you turn it on from Full POWER-OFF state.
I think with four HDs attached (somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 TB of space) it only took mine about 30 minutes to compile the library initially, and maybe 3-4 minutes on subsequent restarts.
Great! Glad to know that this works. I’ll go buy a usb 2.0 hub. I assume brand isn’t important, but you didn’t mention what brand of hub you used. I will most likely get a Belkin or some other main stream brand.
With this now working, I’m surprised more people are not talking about it. This greatly improves the device, for usb setups.
You say you tested early on…there are lots of post that say this media player does not support usb hubs, including WD Tech Support and it will not work without custom firmware, so I thought this only started working after the last firmware update. Is that correct, or was it working for you on a earlier firmware release? Again, you are running WD offical firmware, or custom?
I have two setups, one for home and one for a remote work location. I use unraid at home, but I use the usb setup at my other location. It’s actually nice to have two copies of everything for backups. Now I’ll be able to have all of my files at the other location with 4 drives.
Great! Glad to know that this works. I’ll go buy a usb 2.0 hub. I assume brand isn’t important, but you didn’t mention what brand of hub you used. I will most likely get a Belkin or some other main stream brand.
With this now working, I’m surprised more people are not talking about it. This greatly improves the device, for usb setups.
You say you tested early on…there are lots of post that say this media player does not support usb hubs, including WD Tech Support and it will not work without custom firmware, so I thought this only started working after the last firmware update. Is that correct, or was it working for you on a earlier firmware release? Again, you are running WD offical firmware, or custom?
I have two setups, one for home and one for a remote work location. I use unraid at home, but I use the usb setup at my other location. It’s actually nice to have two copies of everything for backups. Now I’ll be able to have all of my files at the other location with 4 drives.
You will want to buy a POWERED USB hub. An unpowered hub gets it’s power from the USB port on the WDTVsmp and can be easily overtaxed leading to all kinds of issues, especially if you use portable drives that take their power from the USB port.
I use a powered hub and have a combination of 1TB and 500GB drives on all 4 ports with no issue.
You said, “Yes, I use the Media Library extensively”. Perhaps you can clairify something for me when using external hard drives with the Media Lib.
In short, what is the advantage of using the media lib?
How mine works and why I ask: I have this turned on with only 2 drives to test, and after the scan is complete, the Media Lib shows all the files. However, if I want to go a specific movie, I still have to drill down and select which USB1 or USB2, and then browse from there. So, at the end of the day, I still have to file browse to find what I’m looking for. With Mideia Lib off, I do the same thing, so what do I get with it on?
How I think it sould work: if it scans all the drives, then it should know where each movie is, full stop. Then while looking through the Media Lib you should just see a long list of movies and pick one, without having to drill down on a specific USB port. If it worked this way, it would make sense.
Ok, something new to deal with…I have a couple of the Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB and one 4TB. They normaly work fine with my WD tV Live SMP, but sometimes they just disapear. I’ll even be browesing my movie files and poof, the dir will show zero files and then the usb drive isn’t even reconized. It’s like the drives are going to sleep, and the WD unit can’t wake them up in time before they timeout.
I did some checking and Seagate does have a disk utility to disable the drive sleep mode. Of course that means the drives will run forever non stop until they die. The sleep mode is actually a good thing to preserve the drive, but not when the SMP can’t wake them up!
Anyone have a solution, other than disabling the drive sleep mode?
I’ve been using Toshiba and WD portable drives connected via a USB powered hub. They fall alseep, but the WDTV continues to see them. If I have to access them, there is a brief spin-up wait, but they never disappear.
Ok, we got a Trulink USB 3.0 hub, with 4 ports. We have 2 of the Seagate GoFlex Desk 2tb external drives and 1 Seagte GoFlex 4tb external drive connected to the usb hub. The WD SMP sees all 3 drives. So far so good.
But we still have the issue where the WD SMP just freezes in the middle of a movie. Most of the time it is within 15 to 30 minutes. Once this happens, we can only plug hte power and reboot. I used the Segate tool to disable auto sleep mode, but that didn’t seem to resolve anything.
We think the drives are disapearing right in the middle of browsing and watching a movie, thus causing it to freeze. When browsing, and looking at a list of moives, then bam, the usb drive is gone and no movies are listed. While the Seagate GoFlex drives are on the supported drive list, there seems to be a communication issue with the drives. This did the same thing with only 2 of these drives plugged directly into the WD SMP, so the hub didn’t cause this.
The WD SMP did a auto update last night too, but that didn’t help anything either.
The main issue seems to be with these drives. But, others have posted in this fourm saying they are using the same external drives, and not to mention, they are supported hw anyway. They don’t list the 4tb drive, but it’s the same series so it should work.
Any other suggestions before we call WD for support or just return it?
Well no help here. I still have the freezing issue and usb drives dissapear. I’m going to try rolling back the firmware, but that most likely won’t help. I removed the hub for now, and only have 2 of the drives plugged in via the usb 3 cable that came with the Seagate drives.
I even considered buying a NAS shell and installing the Seagate drives in that, thus ditching the usb approach alltogether. But, those cost a lot of $$$.
Unless there is a quick fix, the WD is going in the trash. This has caused me way too much pain and time and WD support is lame unless you buy their crappy hard drives to go with it.
Anyone having issues like this should check out the Popcorn Hour media streamer. That is where I’m headed…
Hello, I just bought the WD TV Live and having the same issue with my Seagate 4TB. I really wished the WD TV Live worked with Seagate HDD. Did anyone find a fix for this problem yet? If not, I may need return my WD to Amazon while I still can.
My next preference is to go with the Popbox V8, but their return policy is not good in case I don’t like it. They hit you with a 15% restocking fee, plus I’ll lost out on shipping cost both ways. That’s like throwing away $60 to return a $129 product.
try using the front usb port. Also, delete the seagate junk. I had my 4tb working just fine, on the front port. The rear port has issues. See this thread…
I resolved all of my WD issues by tossing it in the trash and purchasing the Popcorn Hour A-300, which for only $100 more gives you a way better solution and experience. there are some YouTubes on A-300 for views of the cover art lib and stuff, way cool.
Oh, and WD, won’t support you unless you are using a WD drive. …how nice. :angry:
