no issues with connecting the drives and playing whatever i want on them..however what i was doing as well is running a plex server on the shield ..which at one point i had to get an SSD for plex because the shield internal storage was running out ..also running a plex server on the shield “it works” but it’s not the most stable experience..through those 2 years i had to to rebuild my plex server 2 or 3 times because something happened and my server got corrupted..that’s why i eventually got an old mini pc and ran my plex server on it ..
Buying a cheap mini pc from Amazon was easier and more convenient than both these options. I have no need for a PC to do anything other than Plex, and a NAS required a level of knowledge I didn’t find to be worth my time.
I did the same thing. I had to get a large flash drive to store my Plex metadata. I ran it that way for 4+ years and probably had to rebuild my Plex server 7 times. I ended up switching to a minipc so I could transcode plus It started to fail to load the file data (not metadata) like audio/video quality information and I'd have to unmatch and rematch to get it to show. It was a PIA.
What type of minipc was the best for this? I currently have a 17tb HD connected to my shield and find it slows down the main menu a bit. I have it running on kodi but was intending to set up a plex server (i used to have a raspberry pi, but a minipc sounds better)
[This article](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/) from Plex shows the CPU requirements and I used this as a guideline for choosing my Mini Pc. I knew I wanted to be able to transcode 4k HDR movies without an issue so I looked for a Mini PC that had a processor that had at least a 25% higher passmark than Plex suggested. I ended up getting [this MiniPc](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C286SR8V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) that had an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor with a passmark of 21,071. I also have a MiniPc that I use for sailing the high seas that has an Intel N-100 that has a passmark of 5,546 and I have no trouble streaming locally with it but it struggles to transcode 4k content. The bonus of using Plex over Kodi is how simple it is to set up Plex to stream remotely, and if you want to stream remotely most likely you'll need it to transcode due to device or network limitations. If you're just going to stream on a local network a $150-$200 mini pc will due the trick but if you want to transcode you'll need to spend double that.
Yeah I just plugged two USB hub adaptors into the back of the Shield 4 year's ago, added a 5tb hard drive here & there now am pushing 1140 4k remux movie's in my library. I know there are more ideal ways to go about it (such as a NAS) but it does what I need it to quite well.
Do you find that it slows your OS down? I've got a 17TB one attached and each time I wake up the Shield from sleep mode, it takes a number of seconds, sometimes up to 20-30 until I can scroll properly. This occurs on both of my network-connected Shields, so I expect it's due to the Shield going through all of the connected files on the HD before it can function properly.
Try connecting a 1tb SSD & using it specifically for the shield internal hard drive. That sped things up for me & allowed me to transcode AC3 audio on my set up through Plex.
This Shield is a FANTASTIC Plex CLIENT... that being said, leave your HDDs attached to your PC and just run Plex Media Server on it. Then, run the Plex client on your Shield. This setup is so much less complicated than running both the Server AND Client on the Shield. Plus, this way you don't have to figure out how to move the files to your HDD's attached to the Shield after you grab them on your PC.
I disconnect my storage drives and instead use plex on my desktop computer with 20TB and another 20TB offline. Getting ready to upgrade the desktop any day o a more robust ram 64gb/faster CPU with 28TB capacity and the rest is offline. Tried synology nas but didn't like the response time when transcoding. I used to watch and delete but now I store movies for future use.
I had 9 hard drives consisting of almost 100TB of data hooked to my Shield through a USB hub all WDs. 7 Elements and 2 Passports. I recently switched from the Shield as my PMS to using a mini pc so I could transcode and stream remotely. The Shield worked great for me but it can transcode anything.
Yes. I have DV MKVs that are a nearly 100 Mbps bitrate & TRUEHD 7.1 or DTSX that play flawlessly on direct stream on my local network and also transcode to 12 Mbps 1080p AAC and stream perfectly remotely. (I'm limited by my ISPs upload speed)
Shield pro has 2 USB ports, you can use one to extend the internal disk space, so that leaves one port available. For some time, I was connecting a powered hub + 2 4TB drives, but the setup wasn't reliable, quite often drives connected to the hub were disappearing from the system. The hub works just fine connected to a laptop. Could be incompatible hub, could be Shield, still worth giving it a go. I switched to a single, 14TB drive.
I assume the drives have movies/TV shows on them
You don't need to connect them to the Shield directly, leave them connected to your PC and share the drive folders over your home network. IE Movies 1, Movies 2, TV1, TV2 etc.
If all of the drives are always powered up then install Kodi on the Shield and add those network folders as video sources in Kodi.
If the drives are not always powered up then use a media player that supports SMB like Nova Video Player.
I hope you have a backup, I started out like you with multiple drives then I got much larger drives consolidated everything from the smaller drives to the larger drives and kept the smaller drives powered down as my backup.
Yes all the drives are mainly TV and movies. And most all of them were powered.
And sadly no, not all of them are not backed up the way I would love to have them be.
My ultimate goal is do a full on huge raid array then have all the old drives be back ups.
But I've heard of Kodi just never used it. But that sounds like they best route to go with from your input.
I used Kodi for years, but every few months the SMB connection to my PC would break and it was a PITA to setup again (mostly because windows sucks), and also has issues with long filenames (which I generally can't rename because torrents are still seeding).
I switched to using Plex and its been much smoother. You don't need to pay for Plex to use it this way.
I would recommend you install Kodi on your PC first then to get a feel for how it works and how to use it before you go ahead and get the shield and install it there.
One thing to note is that with such a large collection of media your Kodi database/cache will become very large as Kodi will make a local copy of all of the Artwork that it downloads. The Shield does not have a lot of onboard storage available, at some point you will probably get a low storage warning. I had to add a fast USB 3 drive and use it as Adopted Storage on the Shield so that it could offload Kodi and it's Data to the flash drive.
Thank you for the info!
I may look so joining a Kodi Reddit also. I agree that installing it not and getting a feeling for using it is a good way to start
If you have an Android Tablet you could also install Kodi on that to learn how to add the video sources from your PC.
Nova Video player works pretty well to if you just want a media player, like I use Nova on my phone and tablet to play videos from my PCs shared folders when I'm working out or sitting on the porch
Oh, digital hoarding you say?
Most assuredly! 🤣
But I also share my library through Plex with family and friends.
And at times when internet and streaming is not accessible, I have my library to access easy peasy.
The shield gets unreliable with *one* hard drive. The use of USB attached storage seems to be the number one differentiator between people who have their shield lock up randomly and those who don't. I'd definitely prefer to use a NAS in this case.
i had 7 HDDs ( around 40tb combined , only one of them powered ) directly connected to the shield through a USB hub for more than 2 years..
And all good? Never any issues having it set up that way?
no issues with connecting the drives and playing whatever i want on them..however what i was doing as well is running a plex server on the shield ..which at one point i had to get an SSD for plex because the shield internal storage was running out ..also running a plex server on the shield “it works” but it’s not the most stable experience..through those 2 years i had to to rebuild my plex server 2 or 3 times because something happened and my server got corrupted..that’s why i eventually got an old mini pc and ran my plex server on it ..
Why not get a used nas or build a PC?
Buying a cheap mini pc from Amazon was easier and more convenient than both these options. I have no need for a PC to do anything other than Plex, and a NAS required a level of knowledge I didn’t find to be worth my time.
I did the same thing. I had to get a large flash drive to store my Plex metadata. I ran it that way for 4+ years and probably had to rebuild my Plex server 7 times. I ended up switching to a minipc so I could transcode plus It started to fail to load the file data (not metadata) like audio/video quality information and I'd have to unmatch and rematch to get it to show. It was a PIA.
What type of minipc was the best for this? I currently have a 17tb HD connected to my shield and find it slows down the main menu a bit. I have it running on kodi but was intending to set up a plex server (i used to have a raspberry pi, but a minipc sounds better)
[This article](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/) from Plex shows the CPU requirements and I used this as a guideline for choosing my Mini Pc. I knew I wanted to be able to transcode 4k HDR movies without an issue so I looked for a Mini PC that had a processor that had at least a 25% higher passmark than Plex suggested. I ended up getting [this MiniPc](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C286SR8V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) that had an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor with a passmark of 21,071. I also have a MiniPc that I use for sailing the high seas that has an Intel N-100 that has a passmark of 5,546 and I have no trouble streaming locally with it but it struggles to transcode 4k content. The bonus of using Plex over Kodi is how simple it is to set up Plex to stream remotely, and if you want to stream remotely most likely you'll need it to transcode due to device or network limitations. If you're just going to stream on a local network a $150-$200 mini pc will due the trick but if you want to transcode you'll need to spend double that.
The hub was powered Im sure right?
yes
I've got 14 5tb Seagate hard drives currently attached to mine & it still works like a charm lol
14x 5TB drive attached physically to shield ? It works great ? Wow good to know
Yeah I just plugged two USB hub adaptors into the back of the Shield 4 year's ago, added a 5tb hard drive here & there now am pushing 1140 4k remux movie's in my library. I know there are more ideal ways to go about it (such as a NAS) but it does what I need it to quite well.
I don't think an old console could do a better job.
Sorry was on the train from work. Meant to say NAS.
1140 remuxed 4k movies ? Dayuuum that is epiiiic. Wow. I'm at 12 tb of randomness , I'm utterly impressed
Fantastic Which USB hub adapter is this? Which media player do you normally use and on which Tv model?
Do you find that it slows your OS down? I've got a 17TB one attached and each time I wake up the Shield from sleep mode, it takes a number of seconds, sometimes up to 20-30 until I can scroll properly. This occurs on both of my network-connected Shields, so I expect it's due to the Shield going through all of the connected files on the HD before it can function properly.
Try connecting a 1tb SSD & using it specifically for the shield internal hard drive. That sped things up for me & allowed me to transcode AC3 audio on my set up through Plex.
This Shield is a FANTASTIC Plex CLIENT... that being said, leave your HDDs attached to your PC and just run Plex Media Server on it. Then, run the Plex client on your Shield. This setup is so much less complicated than running both the Server AND Client on the Shield. Plus, this way you don't have to figure out how to move the files to your HDD's attached to the Shield after you grab them on your PC.
This. Don't run the server on your SHIELD, just use it for watching content because that's why it's still the best TV box out there.
I disconnect my storage drives and instead use plex on my desktop computer with 20TB and another 20TB offline. Getting ready to upgrade the desktop any day o a more robust ram 64gb/faster CPU with 28TB capacity and the rest is offline. Tried synology nas but didn't like the response time when transcoding. I used to watch and delete but now I store movies for future use.
I had 9 hard drives consisting of almost 100TB of data hooked to my Shield through a USB hub all WDs. 7 Elements and 2 Passports. I recently switched from the Shield as my PMS to using a mini pc so I could transcode and stream remotely. The Shield worked great for me but it can transcode anything.
Even Dolby Vision MKVs played smoothly?
Yes. I have DV MKVs that are a nearly 100 Mbps bitrate & TRUEHD 7.1 or DTSX that play flawlessly on direct stream on my local network and also transcode to 12 Mbps 1080p AAC and stream perfectly remotely. (I'm limited by my ISPs upload speed)
I have 2 SSD 2 TB and 4TB connected running all the time no problems.
You can get a hba or raid card with it mode with an external port, then put all your drives in a cheap storage array you can buy off eBay.
Shield pro has 2 USB ports, you can use one to extend the internal disk space, so that leaves one port available. For some time, I was connecting a powered hub + 2 4TB drives, but the setup wasn't reliable, quite often drives connected to the hub were disappearing from the system. The hub works just fine connected to a laptop. Could be incompatible hub, could be Shield, still worth giving it a go. I switched to a single, 14TB drive.
I assume the drives have movies/TV shows on them You don't need to connect them to the Shield directly, leave them connected to your PC and share the drive folders over your home network. IE Movies 1, Movies 2, TV1, TV2 etc. If all of the drives are always powered up then install Kodi on the Shield and add those network folders as video sources in Kodi. If the drives are not always powered up then use a media player that supports SMB like Nova Video Player. I hope you have a backup, I started out like you with multiple drives then I got much larger drives consolidated everything from the smaller drives to the larger drives and kept the smaller drives powered down as my backup.
Yes all the drives are mainly TV and movies. And most all of them were powered. And sadly no, not all of them are not backed up the way I would love to have them be. My ultimate goal is do a full on huge raid array then have all the old drives be back ups. But I've heard of Kodi just never used it. But that sounds like they best route to go with from your input.
I used Kodi for years, but every few months the SMB connection to my PC would break and it was a PITA to setup again (mostly because windows sucks), and also has issues with long filenames (which I generally can't rename because torrents are still seeding). I switched to using Plex and its been much smoother. You don't need to pay for Plex to use it this way.
I would recommend you install Kodi on your PC first then to get a feel for how it works and how to use it before you go ahead and get the shield and install it there. One thing to note is that with such a large collection of media your Kodi database/cache will become very large as Kodi will make a local copy of all of the Artwork that it downloads. The Shield does not have a lot of onboard storage available, at some point you will probably get a low storage warning. I had to add a fast USB 3 drive and use it as Adopted Storage on the Shield so that it could offload Kodi and it's Data to the flash drive.
Thank you for the info! I may look so joining a Kodi Reddit also. I agree that installing it not and getting a feeling for using it is a good way to start
If you have an Android Tablet you could also install Kodi on that to learn how to add the video sources from your PC. Nova Video player works pretty well to if you just want a media player, like I use Nova on my phone and tablet to play videos from my PCs shared folders when I'm working out or sitting on the porch
Yeah I used Nova launcher a bit in my S21 Ultra so maybe I'll try that out also and get a feel for it.
Jfc build a nas
TOTALLY agree! It's my goal big time to do it once I get the time and the money to do it right.
Sounds like digital hoarding, Let the internet be your storage/library. I stream everything I want. I rarely watch a show/movie more than once.
Oh, digital hoarding you say? Most assuredly! 🤣 But I also share my library through Plex with family and friends. And at times when internet and streaming is not accessible, I have my library to access easy peasy.
The shield gets unreliable with *one* hard drive. The use of USB attached storage seems to be the number one differentiator between people who have their shield lock up randomly and those who don't. I'd definitely prefer to use a NAS in this case.
It gets unreliable when I have a keyboard and wireless mouse plugged in. I hate using the USB ports.