Just want to make sure I am on the right path… Ordered a Vero 4k+ and powered hub from the OSMC store. Probably going to pick up a Samsung T5 1 TB external drive (which I believe is supported through Linux) to plug into the hub for expanded storage. The drive comes formatted in NTFS, but ext4 seems to be optimal for the Vero so I will reformat it. We have a Mac, that most of our video files are stored on. Seems as though I will need to install Samba server through Kodi on the Vero in order to transfer any video, music or whatever from the Mac. Does this all sound about right? Am I missing an obvious or even hidden step…
There is no need for a powered hub just to plug in a SSD as they don’t draw very much current at all. If you were running something that had a spinning disk inside then the powered hub would be recommended if not required. Can’t say about the Linux compatibility but I would be quite surprised if that particular device wasn’t compatible. NTFS is compatible but may perform a bit slower than ext4 or exfat. Any of these work though and will not really make much difference as your bottlenecked by the USB 2.0 interface which is still faster than what you need for any media file or the capabilities of gigabit ethernet. Samba can be installed with a couple clicks in the My OSMC add-on.
As for what else it should be just standard Kodi stuff. If you haven’t used this software before I would go through the getting started section of Kodi’s wiki. There is also setup information that can be found in the support>wiki found at the top of this site and in the how-to section of this forum.
EDIT/CLARIFICATION
There does exist SSD’s that will consume current in excess of what the Vero has been designed to handle. If you have a 8+ year old pro level SATA SSD that you plan on putting into an adapter and plugging into a Vero then you will want to make sure that it is not going to draw in excess of the USB 2.0 spec which is for a maximum of 500ma current draw. If you are running a prebuilt solid state that is USB 2.0 compatible you should be fine. If you put into an external case most any regular consumer level SSD using TLC, QLC or MLC NAND flash then you will most likely be fine. If for some reason you feel like throwing money away and want to go crazy with a NVME, then you might want to dig into the specs before plugging that in.
That drive has a max draw of 800ma. Given the PSU the Vero comes with you should still be left with around 25% headroom at full load of the drive and Vero combined. I stand by what I said.
Hadn’t read the power rating of the drive. Indeed, it will not tax the PSU excessively, but we can only deliver 0.5A via the on-board USB ports, per port.
The manual says it is USB 2.0 compliant so in the same way the 0.8A max draw would be when it was full transfer with a USB 3 connection. Solid state can pull some power, especially NVME, but they don’t generally do it idling away transferring at 25MB/s.
Appreciate the replies, I will indeed try it without the hub first. Worst case scenario I have a backup powered hub and I helped support OSMC a little more.
Certainly the hub isn’t a terrible idea and will hurt nothing. I did feel like it was relevant given your other thread stating that it was going to be moving from location to location. Having one less thing to carry, and not needing a second plug, is probably pretty desirable in this particular use case.