OT: How to 'see' USB drives in HH6 on HD FOX T2

[Andrew]

As per subject.

If I plus a USB3 drive into my BT Home Hub 6, what do I need to do, to allow my Humax HD FOX T2 to see and play the contents, which are MP3 files from a podcast ?.

The HD FOX T2 is connected to the HH6 with cat5e, and it has a 2.5 inch hard drive plugged into its own USB port for recording and instant replay, so I don't want to keep on plugging and unplugging USB drives.

I don't really want to go down the NAS route if I can possibly avoid it, unless it has solid state drives, nor leave my PC on all the time (which does allow sharing of MP3 files to the Humax).

Does the latest Humax box have better features ?. Does anyone know of an STB that does what the Humax does but also plays FLAC files (HD fOX only understands MP3's).

Thanks

Andrew

[Davey]

Does your T2 not have two USB ports, one each front and rear?

As for what you are trying to do, I have no idea!

[Andrew]

Only a single USB port on the rear and the external hard drive is plugged into it.

I want to listen to podcasts, stored on my PC via my TV but not leave my PC on all the time, hence the idea to use the empty USB port on the rear of the HH6.

[Jethro_uk]

Does the HH6 have the necessary software (and is it enable) to provide this ?

[Tim+]

Funny, I thought our Humax HD FOX T2 had only one USB socket, but on the front! Bottom right hand corner behind a flap.

Tim

[Roger Mills]

That's certainly true of our HDR FOX T2. I don't know about an HD FOX T2.

[Tim+]

Ah, ours is an HDR.... Easily mixed up.

Tim

[Theo]

You can presumably use a USB hub to allow access to more than one drive at a time, assuming the Humax software can handle multiple drives. I'd recommend a powered hub.

Theo

[Steve Walker]

Most Fibre/ADSL routers have an option in their setup to enable them as a Samba (SMB) server. Plug in a drive and set the USB settings to share the drive and it becomes like any Windows share.

I don't know about the particular Humax box involved, but ours can easily be set to play files from such a network share.

SteveW

[Andrew]

The is a flap on the right hand side of my HD FOX T2 (Not HDR) but all it hides is a reset button and an oval mark on the plastic front, with the USB logo, but no connector.

I must have a later version, with the USB connector on the back panel.

[Andrew]

Somewhere I have read that hubs are not supported.

[Andrew]

Mine does do, but only if the PC is switched on because that is the DLNA server.

When the PC is off I can select the HH6 as a USB device but the MP3 files only seem to show as directory headers.

[Andrew]

Found this on the BT forum :-

For Brian, it's a warning not to enable SMBV1 on a PC.

Not sure how this affects an HD FOX T2 connected to the HH6 via CAT5e and no pc switched on.

[Steve Walker]

Ah, I see.

I know that it is possible to have multiple DLNA servers on the same network (I have that), but I don't know if your box can see more than one (some devices can't). Even then, some other client on your network could have a problem.

Do you need to have your DLNA server on the PC? Is it doing anything that the simple HH6 server can't? If so, could you move the DLNA server onto a raspberry Pi or the like, which could be left on 24/7?

SteveW