3.5" hard drive for the ATV?

[Cave Man]

I'm soliciting opinions before cracking open my ATV. Please have a look here:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/03/22/apple-tv-dissected/

That sure looks like a standard IDE male connector at the bottom of the photo. Can anyone confirm? If so, then it might be rather easy to run an IDE cable out of the ATV to a 3.5" PATA drive (current max size of 750 gb) in its own enclosure/power supply. Of course, just because it's there doesn't necessarily mean it's active. I suspect if it is, it will require removal of the 2.5" drive from the ATV (as well as proper construction of the partitions on the 3.5" drive). Any thoughts?

[Eraserhead]

I'm pretty sure the ATV uses a 2.5" HD.

[Cave Man]

I'm pretty sure the ATV uses a 2.5" HD.

Yes, it does. But the point is the logic board also seems to have a standard 3.5" IDE interface. That's my question.

[hauss316H]

I'm pretty sure the ATV uses a 2.5" HD.

hes aware of that, hes asking if you can use a 3.5 HD in an enclosure out of the apple tv

[Cave Man]

Short answer - NO.

The connector on the ATV logic board appears to be ATA-6. Does anyone know an ATA-6 to IDE adaptor cable? I'm having trouble finding such a beast. If it exists, then this should work.

[balamw]

You're not looking hard enough if you can't find the right adapter.

Any of the 2.5-3.5" adapters (that are meant to hook up a notebook drive to a desktop) should work, like: http://www.amazon.com/QVS-CC2200-2-5-Drive-Adaptor/dp/B0000C0SCD The pins go straight through the 40 pin to the 44 pin side, so it shouldn't matter which way you are going.

This cable http://damnsmalllinux.org/store/accessories/40_44pin_cable seems like a bit of a cleaner solution. Use google to search for "40 to 44 pin cable".

B

[Cave Man]

You're not looking hard enough if you can't find the right adapter.

It's more about not knowing what to look for, than looking hard enough. :)

Thanks for the pointer - I'll order the first one since the cable may not be long enough. I'd also like to explore the possibility of formating a master/slave combo as a single volume.

[bigreddogg]

Cave Man, I'm interested in doing the same thing. Did you have success replacing the internal 2.5" drive with an external 3.5" drive?

I've replaced my internal hard drive before, and I have a cable that should work... but I'm curious what cable you used, and more generally if you had any compatibility issues... though I can't imagine what... then again, I've done this enough to know that is not a good reason to assume it will work ;)

Thanks In Advance

[dynaflash]

Cave Man, I'm interested in doing the same thing. Did you have success replacing the internal 2.5" drive with an external 3.5" drive?

Oh yes, and more ;) http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=438073
I strongly suggest you read the *whole* thread.