Roku players with a USB port have no issues reading an external drive that is formatted properly. The drives must be in the FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, exFAT or HFS+ file systems. And even with the correctly formatted drive, the Roku can only recognize media in certain containers with certain codecs. This support page provides more detail about what a Roku can play.
Using DLNA is even simpler, depending on the DLNA server used. As long as the DLNA server is capable of transcoding unsupported media, the Roku can play any media you have. I use Serviio (disclaimer: I wrote the transcoding profiles for Roku devices included with Serviio, but I am not an employee) but there are other servers that offer the same functionality.
Depending on the media you want to play, there are several different apps/channels available in the Roku channel store. If it's pictures (slideshow) there are several different apps. For music I believe there's a few as well. But for video (movies and TV show recordings) Roku Media Player is the only available DLNA player. And RMP does have some flaws. It hasn't received any real updates for close to five years, and has some bugs when playing videos in the M2TS/TS container.
EDIT: I forgot to add, if your media isn't supported by the Roku, it won't be read from an external drive. The drive will appear empty if it doesn't see a file that it can play.
Very insightful.
https://support.roku.com/article/208754908
this link would be extremely helpful read through if I used or was looking to use amd external hard drive or USB.
One thing that stood out for me at least is that there are apps that serve the purpose that in years past, I would use my external hard drive or a USB stick to access my music, movie, photos, or really any type of media. At this point for me personally I am able to access every form of content that I digest within the apps that are on the Roku or on the Roku channels that are available on my player without the need to add an additional USB drive or external drive. I’m sure there are some that have other preferred methods, but I do feel like the industry is headed towards a future where we’ll see less than less of that other way of consuming content.
At the end of the day, I respect everyone’s way of living their lives and the way they prefer to watch a movie or listen to music. It might be harder and harder to do it in ways we used to. That’s me just thinking to myself later at night about the big picture.
And when it comes to formatting the challenges I’ve run into formatting into fat32 on a Mac compared to a PC When I am downloading games on my computer, have really made me want ease of use over anything
