Connecting to External Drive?

[fatyank]

I have a Western Digital 500GB Passport External hard drive. It is USB powered. Is there a way to connect it to my Note Pro so I can read it. It is formatted FAT32 & has a ton of stuff on it so reformatting is not an option! There is no external power option for it. It's my backup drive. I don't have a desktop or laptop to move data to. I am 100% tablet. Any help is greatly appreciated

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[lpt2569]

I have a Western Digital 500GB Passport External hard drive. It is USB powered. Is there a way to connect it to my Note Pro so I can read it. It is formatted FAT32 & has a ton of stuff on it so reformatting is not an option! There is no external power option for it. It's my backup drive. I don't have a desktop or laptop to move data to. I am 100% tablet. Any help is greatly appreciated??????

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I think you can use a micro USB OTG cable, like this one...

http://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU3805212

 

[acejavelin]

I have a Western Digital 500GB Passport External hard drive. It is USB powered. Is there a way to connect it to my Note Pro so I can read it. It is formatted FAT32 & has a ton of stuff on it so reformatting is not an option! There is no external power option for it. It's my backup drive. I don't have a desktop or laptop to move data to. I am 100% tablet. Any help is greatly appreciated������

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You would need a USB 3.0 OTG Cable, like this one... I don't know if it will supply enough power to the Passport drive, so you may have to feed it into a powered hub, then connect the drive to that or use a USB 3.0 Y-cables with power input and an external USB power adapter. Should work fine.

 

[v1v14n]

The OTG cable can be used for small pendrives, I once tried connecting my 320 GB WD passport drive to my Galaxy Tab without luck.

 

[mickeylittle777]

You would need a USB 3.0 OTG Cable, like this one... I don't know if it will supply enough power to the Passport drive, so you may have to feed it into a powered hub, then connect the drive to that or use a USB 3.0 Y-cables with power input and an external USB power adapter. Should work fine.

Acejavelin should be correct on both accounts.

 

[fatyank]

acjavelin, I looked at the 2nd (y-CABLE) you listed. I want to make sure I understand. One part plugs into my Note Pro, the USB (MALE) end plugs into a power source (AC adapter or powered hub) and the USB (FEMALE) end is where the cable from my external HD connects? Will the AC adapter that came with the Note Pro provide enough power? I don't see any power requirements on the HD

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I tried the AC adapter that came with my Note Pro. I plugged my external drive into it and plugged into AC outlet and the drive turned on. I could hear it spinning I'm going to look for that YCable at Frys electronics here in Phoenix. It they don't have it, I'll order from Amazon.They have a distribution center here also . I'll post my results. Thank you

 

[acejavelin]

The power supply should be more than sufficient to easily power an external USB notebook drive, and yes your connections are exactly correct

 

[madaudio]

I have a very slim seagate 1 Tb USB 3 portable drive (not much bigger than the average smartphone) and it works straight off the tablet (formatted ex-Fat). It is getting all its power from the Note Pro. Have not attempted to measure the speed of battery drain used this way.
Am slightly annoyed that it came with a USB 3 to USB 2 cable: meant I had to buy one of those otg cable. A double-ended male USB 3 cable (does such exist?) would mean a single cable from drive to tablet. Anybody done this?

 

[popengchan]

I bought the cable from cable matters and it does not work. Only small pendrives work but hard drives does not. I bought another otg cable from a black market in Asia and my hard drive worked! I do not know how do otgs differ from each other.

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[fatyank]

My cable was delivered this morning. Yes on Sunday. I connected everything and voila, it works as advertised. I'm like a kid on Christmas morning. Now I'm looking for an app that will let me backup my internal and SD card to the external drive. I do have cloud backup but would like to have it on external also. Thank you again!!

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[madaudio]

Hey guys, fairly new to tablets and usb hubs etc. If you connect your tablet to a powered hub, does that mean you are charging your tablet while using whatever accessories (keyboard, portable hard drive etc) you have plugged into the powered hub? :-$

 

[muzzy996]

No, in my experience it will not charge the tablet once the usb port on the tablet goes into host mode to support communicating with the devices on the hub. The benefits of using a powered hub or cable that powers the external device though are still there; reducing power consumption to preserve the battery in the tablet.

 

[madaudio]

Thanks Muzzy: so it (the powered hub) saves the Note pro tablet battery by powering the peripherals plugged into the hub. Well I suppose that is still a positive, rather than draining the Note battering by powering externals.