Friday, March 29, 2024

Expand your storage to the max with the best Shield TV Pro external drives

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The new NVIDIA Shield TV Pro is the best Android tv box that money can buy right now, but you’ll still want to snag one of the best external drives for the Shield TV Pro. It comes with a beefy Tegra X1+ chipset and 3GB of RAM, but the internal storage is limited at 16GB. If that doesn’t sound like enough storage space for your media needs, you can make use of the NVIDIA Shield TV’s USB ports and mount an external storage device to easily expand your available storage.

Best value

Seagate Portable External Hard Drive 5TB

Staff pick

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Looking to get the best value for your money? Then the 5TB Seagate Portable drive should be your go-to choice. The drive works over USB 3.0, easily pairs to your Shield TV, and gives you better gigabyte-to-dollar value than the rest of the options listed here.

$115 at Amazon
$122 at Best Buy
$170 at Walmart

Store everything

Western Digital My Passport Ultra 4TB

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Western Digital’s My Passport Ultra external hard drive is one of the best you’ll find in the market today, and this particular option gives you 4TB of storage. Considering how much you’re paying for it, this is one of the best deals around if you’re looking to maximize the storage on your Shield TV.

$122 at Amazon
$130 at Best Buy
$120 at Walmart

Affordable storage

Western Digital My Passport 4TB

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If for whatever reason the Western Digital My Passport Ultra is unavailable, you’ll want to take a look at the regular My Passport option. It has the same USB 3.0 connectivity and 256-bit AES encryption but costs less for the same 4TB option. That makes it a stellar deal if you’re looking for an external drive.

$110 at Best Buy
$110 at B&H Photo

NVIDIA approved

SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive

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The SanDisk Extreme Pro is one of the few flash drives that NVIDIA specifically recommends for use with the NVIDIA Shield. The solid-state performance here will give you “extreme” read/write speeds, which is ideal for streaming media. We’ll recommend the 128GB model but there’s a larger 256GB model that’s also available if you want to double up.

$43 at Amazon
$43 at Best Buy
$43 at B&H Photo

Nothing flashy

Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB

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The Canvio Basics hard drive from Toshiba provides a plug-and-play experience, along with varying storage sizes. With USB 3.0, it will work perfectly with your Shield TV Pro (2019) and includes a one-year limited warranty from Toshiba.

$95 at Amazon
$105 at Best Buy
$95 at Newegg

Faster than fast

Seagate Barracuda Fast SSD

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Standard hard drives are great and all, but if you want faster speeds then you definitely want a solid-state drive (SSD). The Seagate Barracuda Fast SSD offers up to 2TB of storage, works with all of your devices, and even has a nifty accent light for added effect. Plus, Seagate includes a USB-C to USB-A cable in the box so you can plug it into the Shield TV Pro.

$150 at Amazon
$180 at Walmart
$150 at Newegg

Not just for gamers

WD Black P10 5TB

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Although the WD Black P10 was designed with gamers in mind, you can use this hard drive for anything you need. With up to 5TB of storage, the P10 will be able to house just about anything, from games to movies and much more.

$137 at Amazon
$150 at Best Buy
$140 at Walmart

Value pick

SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive

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If you’re looking to keep things tidy in your home entertainment setup, you’ll want to get this ultra-slim flash drive from SanDisk. It’s available in your choice of storage size, but you’re best off going with the 128GB to maximize your value.

$18 at Amazon
$22 at Best Buy
$26 at Walmart

Durable and reliable

Samsung Bar Plus USB 3.0 Flash Drive

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Samsung’s BAR flash drive is made from metal and designed with a built-in key ring. These sleek and portable flash drives are perfect for use with your Shield and beyond. We’ve linked below to the 128GB version, but you’ll also find the same style available with 32GB and 64GB on the product page.

$24 at Dell
$19 at Amazon
$24 at Walmart

Quick and easy

PNY Turbo Attaché 4 256GB

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On the surface, the PNY Turbo Attaché 4 may not look super flashy, but you’ll get USB 3.0 onboard for fast transfer speeds. And if 256GB is too much, PNY offers this thumb drive in various sizes starting at 32GB. And it has the added benefit of being backward compatible with USB 2.0 devices if you need to transfer items between an older computer and the Shield.

$30 at Amazon
$30 at Best Buy
$52 at Walmart

Plug and forget

Samsung FIT Plus 256GB

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Although the Samsung FIT Plus features USB 3.1 speeds, it is backward compatible with the Shield TV Pro (2019) and it’s USB 3.0 ports. You’ll get fast transfer speeds and a design that allows you to plug it in and forget about. This thumb drive is even water and shockproof just in case the Shield TV Pro falls off your entertainment center.

$37 at Dell
$35 at Amazon
$60 at Best Buy

Store it all

PNY Pro Elite 512GB

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Usually, thumb drives are limited in their capacity due to their size. That’s not a problem with the PNY Pro Elite. This thumb drive offers various storage sizes up to 1TB, although the 512GB version will house up to almost 30 hours of 4K UHD video content. With the Pro Elite, you won’t be disappointed when it’s time to add some more videos to your Shield TV Pro.

$90 at Amazon
$90 at Best Buy
$90 at Walmart

Expand your storage with the best external drives for the Shield TV Pro

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These are the best drives whether you plan to use them to replace the Shield’s 16GB hard drive or use it to download content from your PC files to your living room TV. If you’re looking to max out your internal storage, we’d recommend the 5TB Seagate Portable External Hard Drive. For what you finally pay for 5TB of storage, it is an absolute steal.

Do note that if you decide to mount and use a USB drive as internal storage for your NVIDIA Shield, it will format the drive and wipe it clean and you will need to reformat again to use it with a different device. Alternatively, NVIDIA recommends selecting the “removable storage” option if you’re using the drive for transferring or watching media content. We’d also recommend the SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive due to the fact that it’s one of the few external storage options actually recommended by NVIDIA.

After you’ve found found the best external drives for the Shield TV Pro, make sure you go and grab the best gaming controller for the Shield TV so you have the ultimate home theater and gaming system.

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