[FAQ] Using External Hard Drives with Samsung tablets - Printable Version +- LAVA: Forums (https://forum.lavalink.com) +-- Forum: Support (https://forum.lavalink.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=43) +--- Forum: Samsung Adapters (https://forum.lavalink.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=68) +--- Thread: [FAQ] Using External Hard Drives with Samsung tablets (/showthread.php?tid=20966) |
[FAQ] Using External Hard Drives with Samsung tablets - LAVAEngineering - 08-26-2015 Interfacing an external hard drive to a Samsung tablet can be achieved with the LAVA STS-** product family. The LAVA web site documents which Samsung tablets are compatible with the STS-** product family. The STS-** Product Family includes the STS-E, STS-PE, STS-3U, STS-2UE, STS-P2UE, STS-P2UE+, STS board and TL002. We do not test for specific drive compatibility, as there are simply too many drives on the market. The problems most people seem to encounter with external USB drives can be resolved with the following rules: 1) The drive must be formatted for FAT32 or exFAT 2) Power for the hard drive should be supplied by the Simulcharge adapter rather than the tablet. Other OTG Adapters require the tablet supply the hard drive power. 3) Make sure the USB Power Supply used for the Simulcharge Adapter can supply enough current for the tablet and the hard drive. 4) Do not extend the standard cables. The Android operating system supports the FAT32 and exFAT file systems. Many of the external drives start out formatted for NTFS, which is not natively supported by Android. A NTFS drive must be reformatted. The FAT32 format is not efficient for large drives, when many small files are required. FAT32 is fine when dealing mainly larger files. There is a 4 GB file size limit inherent in FAT32. The exFAT file system allows file sizes larger than 4 GB. Older computer operating systems such as XP may require updates to support exFAT on an external drive. We have recently used an XP 32-bit system with a 1 TB Western Digital "My Passport" Drive 1 TB drives formatted for exFAT. The drive was initially setup for NTFS, and had to be reformatting. The USB hard drives should work off a standard USB port, which means 5 volts and up to 500 mA. If the tablet cannot provide this voltage and current, the drive will not work or behave erratically. Using an Simulcharge adapter which is powered from a USB Charger/Supply resolves this power issue. A small tablet may only have been shipped with a 700 mA to 1000 mA USB Charger/Supply. This will not have enough power to charge the tablet and supply the drive. The larger tablets (10 inch and above) typically have a 2000 mA (2 ampere) USB Charger/Supply. The LAVA TL002 (and PL002) requires a USB Charger/Supply with a Dedicated Charge Port (DCP). This is sometimes referred to as a high capacity charger. The charger supply with the Samsung tablet is a suitable charger. The TL002 (and PL002) operate as a simply OTG Adapter when no power is provided. All other LAVA SimulCharge products can be used with any USB Charger/Supply or other 5 volt power source. The other permitted power sources include External USB Battery Packs. In all cases the power source must have sufficient power for the tablet and hard drive. The other Simulcharge products require power to be present to operate. A tablet controlling an external drive is operating as a USB Host. The Samsung tablets used with the LAVA Simulcharge products draw less than 1.4 amperes when operating in Simulcharge mode. A 2000 mA (2 ampere) USB Charger/Supply should be enough to power the tablet and the hard drive. Do not extend the power cable supplied with the tablet USB Charger/Supply. Extending the cable results in additional voltage (power) loss along the cable. An extended cable may result in the drive failing to work or the tablet not charging. If the voltage at the drive is too low, the drive data could be corrupted. We have tested a few hard drives in the 350 GB to 1 TB range. We have read about people having success with larger drives. We cannot guarantee any one drive and tablet combination as we do not have access to the many drives on the market. Following the earlier rules should yield success in most cases. RE: [FAQ] Using External Hard Drives with Samsung tablets - temar - 03-03-2016 I bought the Lava TL 002 in order to access photos on a Digital Foci Photo Safe II. The goal is to view these RAW format files on a Samsung Galaxy Tab A SM T550. Attempt #1 I connected the DC charge to the Photo Safe and used the TL002 to power up the Samsung Tab. I also just tried powering up the system with only the TL002. However, in either case, when I went to the file directory on the tablet, I did not see the external hard drive listed. My Question for attempt #2. Is there a driver, an app or another Lava product that would make files on the Photo safe viewable on the tablet? The photo safe does use the FAT 32 file system. Thank you |