Anyone know more details on how/if Ouya will support network drives? I did read the xbmc app would support network drives. Is this something that will be app dependent or could I say store all my downloaded games for the ouya on a local network drive instead of the incredibly small onboard storage?
Posted Apr 17, 2013, 7:37 AM UTC
I hope so. That'd be the only way I can feasibly use a media centre. If not, I'll just have to stick with my crappy laptop.
XBMC supports it, which is going to be on Ouya. Don't worry. I know that network shares work fine on my RK3066 Android Stick that I have for one of my TVs, and since Ouya is actually going to be supported by XBMC (RK3066 is not), I imagine it will work just as well.
Every Android device that can run XBMC is able to access CIF/SMB shares. It also supports NFS. You can try it with every android device, just download the apk and install it.
If you want to mount CIFS into the file structure, that is maybe possible. You might need a kernel with CIFS support.
Also, I don't think that it would be possible to store OUYA games on a network drive. Maybe some of the emulators are supporting network shares.
Yes I agree it should be absolutely trivial for a developer to implement a software solution to access SMB shares.
However, if you want to mount a network share via CIFS you will need kernel level support. it is unknown if this is included stock at the moment. the last time i speculated i got downvoted a lot. ...but i dont think it will be.
I hope we can get someone that has received their Ouya to do some testing for this. There's no question that XBMC works.
I had the same question a while back, specific to ROMs being able to be run over a Samba share. I'd prefer to load as little as possible on the internal storage of the Ouya.
http://www.reddit.com/r/ouya/comments/1bqbx8/emulators_roms_over_samba/
Hmm, I hope so. I have a 2TB nas4free box with plenty of space free. Would be awesome if I could even use it to store games/apps as well as media.
nas4free?
It's an open source OS based off of freeBSD. Main purpose is file servers. Can run on fairly minimal hardware and has a web based interface, so the PC doesn't have to be connected to a monitor after setup.
Its apparently a fork of FreeNAS 7.
Same here, my 6TB nas4free server is already filled with movies TV shows and game roms.
Given that XBMC has dev units, and has even demoed XBMC running at a public event, I would assume it does.
There is no option to choose where to install games from the store. I am able to browse and stream from my PC over a NFS connection to xbmc, but installation of apps seems fixed. Still haven't quite figured out where everything goes. Interestingly, xbmc wasn't in the ouya store when I looked for it; I had to sideload it even though I thought I read that it was in the store.
There are multiple network protocols that one can use to stream other than NFS, and NFS is a little tricky to set up and requires a paid third-party server program. It is, however, the fastest protocol according to sources I read. I had mixed results, with some videos streaming perfectly at 720p and some being choppy. I don't know why yet.
I sideloaded ASTRO file manager, but I haven't checked yet to see if it can access the network. There is no native ouya file manager that I can see. Also, I can't see my ouya in my windows network places.
Apps that are sideloaded go to a different section from those that you download from the ouya store, except I sideloaded an N64 emulator, Mupen64plus, and it showed up in the same place as the version from the ouya store. That leads me to believe that someone will figure out pretty quick how to install into that section. Maybe not.
Relatedly, over a usb connection, I can see my ouya in windows as a drive. It points to a folder called sdcard01 or something similar on the ouya. I can't access windows from the ouya over usb yet, as far as I can tell.
I'm sure a lot of this will be ironed/figured out pretty soon
NFS does not require a paid server. FreeNFS is an option. NFS beats the pants off of SMB when it comes to overhead in many cases, but you are correct in that it can be tricky to set up for the uninitiated.
Thanks! I guess I should have figured a free solution existed; I just went by the xbmc wiki and downloaded the trial. Also, I can confirm that the emulators and ASTRO don't see my computer at all.
I haven been trying my hardest and can't get any network shares to work. I've tried Samba, AFP, and media streaming services like Playstation Media Service and another one for WebDav and still no dice.
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I'm sure you think you're being clever, but even on vanilla android (which this isn't), the answer is still only "sort-of". In what I still consider to be a terrible decision, the android team has chosen to not bother with native network share mounting. You need a 3rd party app to do it, and not all of them work with all devices. Most require kernels with networking modules which are not baked in by default.
There are file managers which will browse network shares (ES seems to be the most reliable), but that only works inside the file manager itself. Other programs (like XBMC) wouldn't have access to them. XBMC has built-in networking, but I don't know what the status of that is on android. And even if that works, what about emulators and other programs? Wouldn't you rather stream your PSone ISOs from your server rather than have to copy them over onto the ouya's scant internal storage one or two at a time?
Asking whether ouya has native SMB/CIFS support is a totally valid question, and one that hasn't been answered yet to the best of my knowledge. Lack of proper networking support would be a huge problem for most users.
Thanks for this, so yes to sum it up. Native > App support. Without native support we will have to result to hoping each individual app has decent networking built in. We would also loose the ability to install apps directly to network storage and instead have to rely on the small on board storage space limits.
I don't consider the eventual support for external drives a solution. I would also imagine that would be harder to implement than SMB/CIFS support.
loose the ability to install apps directly to network storage
I don't think you'd want to do that even if it were possible. The actual apps should always be on local storage. The associated data files (like ROMs) can be accessed remotely. The actual executable portion of an app shouldn't take up much room, and well designed apps use self-contained data files for the bulky bits that can (hopefully) be moved to a server.
I would also imagine that would be harder to implement than SMB/CIFS support.
Network shares aren't hard to implement, they just require compatible kernels. There is no reason the ouya shouldn't be able to access remote shares, and there is no excuse if it does not do so out of the box.
Let-me-be-a-passive-aggressive-dick-about-it-for-you.com
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Couldn't imagine built in network drive support not being apart of the package. It wont take long for consumers to max out storage on the device and a ugly flash drive or even worse a usb hd sticking out of this sleek little box would do it no justice at all.