I’ve done a speed test now, I did the test once using the Nexus, and then another test using the same drive, cables etc. but attached to my PC instead of the Nexus.

Copying a folder of 288 files, 3.73GB in total: Nexus 8 mins; PC 4 mins 37 secs.

Copying a folder of 1 file, 3.81GB in total: Nexus 7 mins 14 secs; PC 3 mins 14 secs.

So the Nexus is nearly twice as slow as my PC at copying files from a memory card to an external hard drive.

Hi Seth

1. I haven’t used this setup with a USB powered portable hard drive. I have read that whether this will work or not depends on the power draw of the hard drive, as the nexus 7 doesn’t put out as much power over USB as a laptop or computer would. If you use a powered USB hub, then this will provide enough power for the drive.

2. I’ll have to do a test on that and get back to you. I can tell you that it is pretty slow though.

3. I’m using a Sumvision USB 3 hub (Nexus 7 is only USB 2 though, so there are no speed benefits from using a USB 3 hub). For the CF card reader I’m using a Kingston multi-card reader. Any USB 2 hub and CF card reader should be okay though.

Regards

Dave

Thanks for the write-up! I have a few questions:

1. Have you used this setup with a portable USB hard drive? To power a portable drive, I’m assuming you would have to buy a USB splitter and inject power.

2. Do you know the approximate transfer rate from your CF card to the hard drive? I’ll need to copy large video files, so it would be nice to estimate how long the transfers will take.

3. What CF reader and hub are you using?

Thanks!

Seth

Hi Russ

Yes, you can use the same process as above to files directly from the Nexus’ built in storage to an external drive. Just use ES File Explorer to browse to the files you want to copy, select and copy them, then browse to the correct usbStorage folder and paste them in there.

Dave

i’ve followed the instructions and successfully allowed myself root access to all of the programs and i am very grateful for the help you’ve provided 🙂

i’m just wondering if there is anyway i can now copy data off the Nexus 7 and onto something like a USB drive or external HDD to give myself additional storage space to back up my photos?

Cheers!

Russ

Hi Longjohn

Thanks for the info! I just tried again with Android 4.2.2 today, and it seems that Paragon NTFS is no longer needed. The NTFS partition is mounted okay by stickmount and can be written to without the Paragon app installed. So the process is a bit simpler now than it was before. I’ve added a note to the start of the article to this effect.

Cheers

Dave

There sure is a lot of junk information out there that doesn’t apply after 4.2 yet no one bothers to correct it.