Possible to copy data from phone to external Harddrive via OTG cable?

[airborne]

Is it possible on an unrooted device running 6.01(a Note 4 in my case) to copy data from the phone to an external Harddrive via OTG cable?

The harddrive works perfectly via OTG cable I can view the hdd content on the phone and copy from the hdd to the phone but not from the phone to the hdd.

I want to be able to use the phone to backup camera SD cards and then copy that data to an external hdd.

 

[AlphaJohn]

Yes, just did it with Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X using the built in Explorer app.

Edit: Funny enough tested it now with Solid Explorer Pro and it complained about prems.

 

[airborne]

Yes, just did it with Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X using the built in Explorer app.

Edit: Funny enough tested it now with Solid Explorer Pro and it complained about prems.

I was also using Solid Explorer Pro, maybe that's the issue, what Firmware is the 4x running?

 

[Johnatan56]

HDD format?

 

[airborne]

HDD format?

Looks may have been the filesystem on the hdd, tested with a flash drive and same issue but after I let the phone format the drive it could copy to it fine.

Best/correct file system is probably FAT?

 

[airborne]

I've got this working, even in Solid Explorer - drive must be FAT32 formatted.
Tested a 320GB Seagate Momentus in a USB 2 external housing copy/transfer speeds(phone to external) where pitiful, max 9MBs, same drive in a USB 3 housing 3 to 4 times the speed- Max almost 30MBs and 5-10mbs hdd to phone transfer.

Weird becuase the OTG connection is USB 2 so both should be nearly the same speeds ?

EDIT: I erred, the speeds quoted above from the USB 2 drive were from when the hdd was NTFS formatted, I retested it now with FAT32 and it has virtually the identical speeds to the USB 3 housing.

 

[AlphaJohn]

I've got this working, even in Solid Explorer - drive must be FAT32 formatted.

Interesting to note,
Will confirm at home.

 

[airborne]

Also tried just now with a USB powered hub with the power adapter attached and works like a charm even with a SD card in a card reader plugged into the hub, transfer speeds seem to drop though when using a hub.