# expanding the storage



## sergeant86

Hi all,I am trying to expand my Tivo stick's storage. I have followed all the instructions to a tee. Everything works great till after I format the flash drive. When I click on the storage it only shows the internal drive storage and the flash drive always says that it was ejected. What is the fix to this?


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## Alex_7

sergeant86 said:


> Hi all,I am trying to expand my Tivo stick's storage. I have followed all the instructions to a tee. Everything works great till after I format the flash drive. When I click on the storage it only shows the internal drive storage and the flash drive always says that it was ejected. What is the fix to this?


what type of external drive are you using? SD card/USB flash drive?
size of storage in GB?


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## sergeant86

I successfully initially format my 32 gb Sandisk flash drive(new)


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## Alex_7

sergeant86 said:


> I successfully initially format my 32 gb Sandisk flash drive(new)


Have you tried restarting your tivo device after formatting?


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## sergeant86

Yes


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## Alex_7

I've heard the tivo stream just doesn't like some flash drives, you might need to test another one


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## sergeant86

Thanks everybody. I figured it out. You need to format the flash drive as a removable storage. I had not


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## Alex_7

sergeant86 said:


> Thanks everybody. I figured it out. You need to format the flash drive as a removable storage. I had not


I was having the same formatting issues as you with my new Sandisk flash drive. Found out the issue was my drive was read only. Checked it out on my pc, it had write protection enabled so the drive was useless. I think it arrived defective.


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## Lenonn

Alex_7 said:


> I was having the same formatting issues as you with my new Sandisk flash drive. Found out the issue was my drive was read only. Checked it out on my pc, it had write protection enabled so the drive was useless. I think it arrived defective.


I just used the recommended combo (from this forum): SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 Flash Drive and Syntech USB C to USB Adapter - the only difference was I got a 128GB drive. Unfortunately, I ran into the same problem as Alex_7. Plugged the drive into a few Windows PCs after formatting but Windows Explorer doesn't show the device. It DOES appear in Device Manager but there doesn't seem to be a way to reformat the drive in Windows or TiVo Stream 4K.


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## Alex_7

Lenonn said:


> I just used the recommended combo (from this forum): SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 Flash Drive and Syntech USB C to USB Adapter - the only difference was I got a 128GB drive. Unfortunately, I ran into the same problem as Alex_7. Plugged the drive into a few Windows PCs after formatting but Windows Explorer doesn't show the device. It DOES appear in Device Manager but there doesn't seem to be a way to reformat the drive in Windows or TiVo Stream 4K.


It sucks! only solution was to return the defective drive and order a new one.


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## Lenonn

What is the proper procedure for formatting a USB drive for the 4K?

For the SanDisk that ended up not working, I plugged it into the 4K, went to the notification that popped up and told it to format it (it gave no options). It took a long time after which I got the ejected disk message.


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## Alex_7

Lenonn said:


> What is the proper procedure for formatting a USB drive for the 4K?
> 
> For the SanDisk that ended up not working, I plugged it into the 4K, went to the notification that popped up and told it to format it (it gave no options). It took a long time after which I got the ejected disk message.


If it works like its supposed to you would get a notification saying something like "USB flash drive inserted/detected" then it prompts you to format device as internal storage. You can ignore the formatting if you just want to use your drive as removable storage. But if you want to use your drive as internal storage you go ahead and click format for internal storage. Your device needs to be FAT32 format to work. Once the tivo stream successfully formats your drive it asks you if you want to move your apps and data to your external drive.

If you are not receiving any of these messages, the tivo stream is not recognizing or accepting your inserted drive.


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## vurbano

I have successfuly formatted 4 sandisk 128Gb cruiser glides with the 4K, The 4K uses ExFAT and supports files over 2GB in size.


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## Lenonn

Is formatting the drive as Internal Storage necessary to transfer apps onto it? Also, I’ve been poking around but don’t see where to go (menu-wise) to transfer an app to the flash drive.


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## Alex_7

Lenonn said:


> Is formatting the drive as Internal Storage necessary to transfer apps onto it? Also, I've been poking around but don't see where to go (menu-wise) to transfer an app to the flash drive.


yes, formatting is necessary to transfer apps to your external drive. 
Go to "apps" in your settings select your desired app, you will see "storage used" then select your external drive to transfer your app.


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## vurbano

Lenonn said:


> Is formatting the drive as Internal Storage necessary to transfer apps onto it? Also, I've been poking around but don't see where to go (menu-wise) to transfer an app to the flash drive.


i dont think so. I think you can format as external and transfer apps but some are slow to run, some need permissions set etc. with how small the working storage devices are I just format my 128gb flash drives as internal.


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## Lenonn

The Stream hosed my PNY drive. It read okay, but after the formatting it ended up doing the infinite “ejected drive” situation.


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## eskovan

I only just got the TS4K a few days ago.

After getting a USB a to c adapter I tried plugging a SanDisk 128GB thumb drive I had into it. It didn't give a notification when I plugged it in, but it was there when I went to Storage. So I did Format as internal. After running for awhile it just exited to the main screen. However it then only gave me the 'drive has been safely ejected' loop over and over. Rebooting made no difference.

Put the SanDisk drive into my Windows PC, it showed as two drives/partitions (one large, one small) and that both needed formatting to be read. The smaller drive wouldn't format but the big one did, as exFAT. Still when put back into the TS4K it would again only show the 'drive has been safely ejected' message.

Putting it back into my Windows PC I opened Computer > Manage > Disk Management. I deleted both partitions, created one big new partition using the whole drive, then I formatted it as exFAT (NOT using Quick Format), and put it in the TS4K.

This time it worked! It notified me immediately that the SanDisk had been detected, so I formatted it as internal storage, transferred apps to it etc.

I think the first time I inserted the thumb drive into the TS4K it was still formatted as NTFS. This allowed the TiVo to see it, but then led to a bunch of corrupt formatting.

If you have a thumb drive that TS4K messed up and Windows won't read or format it, use Disk Management to delete & recreate it's partition. And don't put an NTFS drive into a TS4K, make sure it's formatted as exFAT first.


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## josephtanyh

Anyone tried 4tb with a dock? Tia


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## adam1972

I've been trying Samsung SD's.. reads them just fine but when formatted through the tivo storage menu they become unusable. It simply says they've been ejected. Same with a 500GB SSD. If I format Fat32 I can use it all day long, transfer files and such. You can't use it like internal storage mind you but it's readable and writeable. The moment I format as internal storage it also becomes part of the "safely ejected" group forever.


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## eskovan

adam1972 said:


> I've been trying Samsung SD's.. reads them just fine but when formatted through the tivo storage menu they become unusable. It simply says they've been ejected. Same with a 500GB SSD. If I format Fat32 I can use it all day long, transfer files and such. You can't use it like internal storage mind you but it's readable and writeable. The moment I format as internal storage it also becomes part of the "safely ejected" group forever.


I would try the method I described above. Deleting and recreating a partition with Windows disk management is a level of formatting higher than just disk format..


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## Stryyker

eskovan said:


> I would try the method I described above. Deleting and recreating a partition with Windows disk management is a level of formatting higher than just disk format..


I think some stream and android devices tend to have issue with "external" drives over 128gb being formatted for internal or adoptable storage. In my experience and according to some developers, anyway.


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## h d

I was able to expand my storage using OTG cable and also i was able to expand storage via the usb-c port i had to change the charging brick to a ipad brick which is 10w


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