I mentioned previously that I was able to successfully use a keyboard
and mouse by attaching them to a USB hub and connecting
it to the table. The next question was "Can I connect an external hard drive"?
I have a Seagate Free Agent 512MB portable USB drive, intended as a backup solution, and formatted as NTFS. The answer was "Yes, I can, with external assistance."
The assistance is the free
Paragon exFAT, NTFS & HFS+ app. The Paragon driver adds NTFS support through the Linux NTFS 3g framework. The device must be rooted to use this. (Mine is.)
Paragon sees the Seagate drive, and mounts it at /mnt/usbhost1. A root enabled file manager is required to explore the drive. I use an open source package called
Ultra Explorer from the XDA Developers forum.
The Seagate drive is unpowered, expecting to get power from the device it connects to. The tablet doesn't have the power to drive it reliably. Connect it bare and Paragon sees it, tries to mount it, and loses it again. The solution is to connect it to a powered USB hub, and connect the hub to the device. I already use a hub to connect keyboard and mouse, so the Seagate is one more device plugged into it.
I don't have a particular immediate need to do this. It's mostly a "Why? Because I
can!" exercise. But it's one more tool in the toolbox, and will likely be of use down the road.
______
Dennis