SSDs with smart TVs?

[Dave2002]

Does anyone know why some SSDs don't seem to work with some smart TVs. We have a Toshiba UHD 49 inch TV - which has been a pain to get going, with a lousy manual (no printed one, not even a decent startup sheet), and a difficult to use online one. I tried to get it working with an Integral 240 Gbyte SSD in an enclosure, but to no avail.

On the other hand, a SanDisk USB stick worked fine as a recording medium when put into one of the USB slots at the back of the set.

I did wonder whether the volume name (for the SSD) is significant - perhaps it has to be set to NO NAME to work - and pre-formatted in FAT - even if it is then reformatted by the TV.

[Bryn]

Does anyone know why some SSDs don't seem to work with some smart TVs. We have a Toshiba UHD 49 inch TV - which has been a pain to get going, with a lousy manual (no printed one, not even a decent startup sheet), and a difficult to use online one. I tried to get it working with an Integral 240 Gbyte SSD in an enclosure, but to no avail.

On the other hand, a Samsung USB stick worked fine as a recording medium when put into one of the USB slots at the back of the set.

I did wonder whether the volume name (for the SSD) is significant - perhaps it has to be set to NO NAME to work - and pre-formatted in FAT - even if it is then reformatted by the TV.

Could it be a capacity issue? Many devices are limited to, say, 32GB or 64GB reading capacity. What is the capacity of the USB stick you can successfully use?

[johnb]

Is the SSD format compatible with what the TV expects?

Is it a power issue - what happens if you connect it via a powered hub?

[Dave2002]

Thanks for the suggestions.

The TV is supposed to be able to reformat a connected storage device. It claims to do this, but whether it does or not I don’t know.

I already tried reformatting the SSD to FAT in case it couldn’t cope otherwise.

Not sure about the powered hub option. I’d probably have to buy a powered USB3 hub to check - year’s since I used hubs, let alone powered ones. Might be worth a try.

I could try a similar sized HDD to see if that works. The SSD does still work, as I used it last night to play music through my MBP.

The USB stick which works is 32 Gbytes I think. I might just have to keep with those, though it is a concern that it doesn’t work with the SSD, which I’d thought was a good option.

It’s perhaps not such a big deal, as we might not need to save much material either for time shift or for more permanent storage. So far I’ve not managed to use the recorded data on any other device, so it may be locked to the TV. I’ve not done extensive tests on that, though. On some other devices it’s only HD video files which can’t be exported to other systems.

[johnb]

Dave, what I meant was that that it might be an idea to try the SSD with an external power supply.

[Dave2002]

Dave, what I meant was that that it might be an idea to try the SSD with an external power supply.

Ah - thanks. Problem with the current casing is that it doesn't have one - but I might have another. Do SSDs take more power than HDDs? The TV manual suggests operating HDDs directly from the USB port, so probably ought to work, unless the SSD takes too much from the TV.The power lights come on on the SSD.

[johnb]

I would have thought that SSDs would take significantly less power than HDDs. However, unpowered HDDs can be problematic.