i still have an x96max that i bought several yrs ago on troy’s recommend that running android 8 still works great and plays 4k videos just fine and records to my 1TB external drive like no ones biz so…several months ago i bought several older boxes w android 7-9 on them to stash away
my question…what is the advantage of the newer android os systems 10 and above? the older boxes luv tivimate and system picker works great on them and it’s easy to set permissions to record to external drives…not so with the newer android os systems as they have made it difficult to record to external hardware.
what’s the advantage of the newer os systems as they seem to deter you from recording to external hd…try to find a box w older os system and you basically can’t? i have a few
i’ll respect all opinions just trying to learn something
Yesterday I watched a new Troy video regarding a new box running 14. He commented about some apps may not be able to run on 14. So to make a long story short my guess is as the operating system gets newer some older apps may not be compatable.
Ive got and older x96max that has android 9 and I dont use it for tv anymore I could cause it works fine but I now use it as a weather radar thats always on and it just purrrs along 
I still like the older android versions up to 10, I find them easier to work with.
To answer the topic of this thread, latest Z11 pro max has better specs, newer hardware,os software and MYTVOnline 3 app - newer device is better - the older Z8 pro (Android 7, MYTVOnline2 ) and Z10 (Android 10, MYTVOnline 2) are good devices and preform as intended today
It depends on the device you get - if it has USB ports or micro sd port, adding local external storage can be simply plug and play or may need setting permissions for app to use that storage.
Some devices have network storage options with software installed and you just configure it .
eg Formuler / MYTVOnline app
those boxes are expensive and most basically can’t afford one?
on the older androis os system tivimate and system picker work great for recording to external drive…not so much for the newer androis os as the write permission to external HD is prohibited but you can configure an external HD as internal storage and most have found that to be hit or miss? mostly miss…older boxes can be had for 35-40US and recording to external drive isn’t a prob at all and you can plug that HD into any computer and play those files with vlc…can’t do that if the drive is formated as internal