I Added External Storage to My Fire Stick, and Now I Use It More Than Ever

Received a Hearth Stick that you do not use very a lot? That was me till I related a USB flash drive to it, and now I take advantage of it just about day-after-day for media content material, pictures, music, and extra. And it was simple to arrange, too.

How and Why I Use Exterior Storage With My Hearth Stick

I’ve owned a few Amazon Hearth Sticks over time. Though I like them, and they’ve got some useful extra features, they all the time find yourself hanging behind my TV, gathering mud slightly than being absolutely used. Prime Video is not my favourite streaming service and I usually let my Amazon and other subscriptions expire, leaving me with simply free apps to watch.

Searching for a solution to make extra use of my primary HD mannequin, I thought-about setting up Plex on my Fire Stick. Nonetheless, that was slightly extra hands-on than I wished, so I settled as a substitute for including exterior storage. It made the system extra helpful than ever. I take advantage of mine for media recordsdata and content material, however you’ll be able to set it up for apps and video games, too.

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Set Up an Exterior Drive on a Hearth Stick

To arrange exterior storage in your Hearth Stick, you want an OTG cable with a micro-USB plug and micro-USB and USB-A ports. I picked up an inexpensive one at random from Amazon—the Rii Micro USB Host OTG Adapter Cable, to be exact—and it really works completely high quality.

You additionally want some storage. A USB flash drive is best as a result of it is a lot smaller, however you should utilize an exterior SSD or an SD card with adapter if you would like.

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If you happen to plan to make use of your additional storage for media content material, as I do, you need to format the drive with the FAT32 file system. You are able to do this natively in Disk Utility in macOS, however you want extra steps to format a drive larger than 32GB in Windows.

FAT32 comes with one main limitation. It would not assist recordsdata bigger than 4GB. If you happen to’re utilizing very giant video recordsdata, you would possibly want to have a look at one thing like Plex in its place. A 2TB drive is the restrict for this file system.

Lastly, you want some apps to play your content material. The Hearth Stick app retailer has well-known names like VLC, however comfortably the very best video app I’ve discovered is NOVA Video Participant. It performs virtually all recordsdata (aside from these within the AV1 format, which my growing older Hearth Stick cannot deal with), robotically downloads metadata to your content material, and has a number of superior technical options like making it trivial to repair audio sync points.

VLC remains to be price putting in for issues like pictures and music, plus File Explorer for dealing with the recordsdata. Do not forget, you’ll be able to sideload apps to a Fire Stick if you cannot discover what you need within the retailer.

To get began, format your drive, copy your content material, after which join the OTG cable. Plug the micro-USB jack into the Hearth Stick, your flash drive into the USB-A port, and the ability cable into the micro-USB port.

Activate the Hearth Stick, and the exterior storage must be detected robotically. Now simply open one among your apps to view your content material.

Working Hearth Stick Apps Off Exterior Storage

As an alternative of utilizing your exterior storage for media, you should utilize it to increase the inner storage and run apps off it. However there are two issues you might want to know.

• You may solely use an exterior drive for media or apps, not each.
• Many apps cannot be run off exterior storage. It depends on the developer to allow the characteristic.

If you wish to go this fashion, join the drive and go to Settings > My Hearth TV > USB Drive. Choose “Format to Inner Storage.” Formatting begins with out warning and can wipe the drive. It additionally means the drive will not be readable in your pc, so you may must reformat it once you cease utilizing it in your Hearth Stick.

Now you’ll be able to start the hit-and-miss technique of discovering apps to maneuver to your exterior storage. Go to Settings > Functions > Handle Put in Functions. Choose every app, and if you happen to see it, click on “Transfer to USB Storage.” If you happen to do not see this feature, the app would not assist being moved and there are not any workarounds.

A Flash Drive Gave My Hearth Stick a New Lease of Life

Connecting a flash drive to my Hearth Stick was a game-changer for the system. It makes it a lot extra highly effective and versatile to have the ability to add my very own content material, slightly than being restricted to the supported streaming companies.

It’s admittedly a tad inconvenient to should hold unplugging the drive to repeat new recordsdata onto it, however I am keen to simply accept that compromise in return for its ease of setup and use. Plex, and the popular Plex alternative Jellyfin, are clearly extra highly effective for the really dedicated media shopper. However if you happen to need not entry your content material in all places, NOVA Video Participant provides a reasonably polished expertise.

You may add storage to all Hearth Sticks; it is a easy solution to breathe new life into a tool that’s being in any other case uncared for.