How to mount network storage to the NVIDIA Shield TV

By Richard Devine
last updated

This wonderful media box can also hook into network attached storage, perfect if you've got a NAS at home that's crammed full with your personal media files. Making it so your NVIDIA Shield can see this drive is a pretty simple process.

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Shield TV

All you have to do is follow these steps:

  1. Open settings.
  2. Select storage and reset.
  3. Next, select network Storage.
  4. In available network storage, select your drive.
  5. Click on connect as a registered user.
  6. Enter any username and password for the attached drive.

Assuming it was successful you will now see your connected drive showing up on the Shield for you to access your files. It's a little less elegant than using something like Kodi or Plex to get at your media, but if all you want is your files, this will get you just that. You can also connect as a guest if your drive allows that, but obviously, any limitations imposed by this will be translated to the Shield.

It's also great for allowing apps on your Shield TV to access files on your network attached drive. Once you've done the initial setup process and you've logged in with any passwords, the Shield will remember those and automatically connect everytime it boots up. So apps using the connected storage won't have to worry about authenticating every time.

Richard Devine
Richard Devine
5 Comments
  • Can we do the same in our phones running Nougat. Generally I use ES File explorer for browsing the files in my Network drive. Is there a way i can actually mount it, so that I can download stuffs on my phone directly into the drive?
  • As a note, the Shield had an issue where it will forget your network storage frequently... I was using Shield as my Plex server, but I grew tired of reconnecting it to my NAS... So I went back to using my NAS as my Plex server, even though the Shield was slightly more capable.
  • Nope. I have wasted MANY HOURS trying to map my SHIELD TV to my Seagate GoFlex Home network drive and it simply doesn't work because Nvidia's completely broken implementation of SMB protocol and its inability to cope with shares with spaces in their name which, unfortunately, is what Seagate did. This has been a known issue for a year and Nvidia simply DGAF about fixing it so users like me are SOL. You can't rename the shares without hacking the drive's Linux config which is highly technical for non-uber-nerds and if you screw it up, you lose your data, defeating the purpose of a backup drive. Every. Freaking. App. on my SHIELD can see the drive via UPnP and even SMB - Kodi, VLC, whatever - but Plex can't because you need to map the external drive thru the Mount External Storage method which is broken as noted. I don't want to have to turn on my gaming rig to have its Plex server feed the SHIELD (I'll sometimes not turn it on at all for days while working on laptop or mobile devices), so it's a PITA to have to dig with other apps, but until Nvidia bothers to patch their broken code, I'm SOL. So annoying and other than missing Android TV apps and lack of Dolby Vision support, the only real beef I have with the SHIELD.
  • Missing Android TV apps?
  • Don't use Seagate drives?