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Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
I'm really diggin' this 500 gig eSATA drive on my Apple TV. :D
 

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dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
Hehe, well mines bigger than yours ... (okay not really, but its the same) ;)

Cave, you gotta admit it was worth the effort, am I right ? Frankly its like a whole new setup. The extra space and speed is really awesome.
 

northy124

macrumors 68020
Nov 18, 2007
2,293
8
You've already filled most of it up:eek:, well anyway it's nice to have more than 160GB if i get one I might customize it like yours, but with bigger HDD.
 

markfc

macrumors 65816
Sep 18, 2006
1,061
2,749
Prestatyn, Wales, UK
Cool, have you got a photo of how the unit looks with the external hard drive?

I was thinking of getting one of those external drives that look like the macmini and somehow join them together!!
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
I was thinking of getting one of those external drives that look like the macmini and somehow join them together!!

I don't think you want to do that. The 3.5" drives put out a lot more heat than the 2.5" drives (largely because of 12v power line), so you probably don't want to adjoin it to the Apple TV (which already gets freakin' hot). The eSATA drive is in its own fanless enclosure and tucked away out of sight. Also, since it is external, I can remove it and connect it to my Mac if need be.
 

brand

macrumors 601
Oct 3, 2006
4,390
456
127.0.0.1
I just have to recover from building my $1,300 hackintosh Mac Super Pro. :D It's one screamin' machine.

I don't see how it would be called a Mac Super Pro since it is a Hackintosh. On the other hand a Hackintosh would have a corny name like that.
 

Hammster

macrumors newbie
Apr 28, 2008
3
0
Suffer me a basic question on this eSata approach...

I'm going at this the other way using a patchsticked ATV to network mount a 1.3TB RAID5. It works great, but takes a bit more system knowledge to get it to play nice.

This seems like a much more wife-friendly approach, but I am wondering about your synching method. I don't have a spare TB of space on my iMac to synch from. Once the content is synched to the eSata, do you just delete it from your source iTunes?

Also, in your picture the eSata adapter looked to be sticking straight up from the ATV motherboard. How did you get it to fit in the enclosure you pictured?
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
I don't have a spare TB of space on my iMac to synch from. Once the content is synched to the eSata, do you just delete it from your source iTunes?

I think that would work. You can sync, then delete the original file from your computer's hard disk - but BE CERTAIN that you leave it in iTunes (even though it's only a reference). I've not tried it, but others on the forums have with success, I believe.

Also, in your picture the eSata adapter looked to be sticking straight up from the ATV motherboard. How did you get it to fit in the enclosure you pictured?

See this post for the use of the cross-over ribbon with the Syba SATA bridge. Basically, it's ATV logic board > cross-over > Syba SATA controller > iSATA to eSATA cable (dynaflash method) OR iSATA to eSATA plate then an conventional eSATA cable to your eSATA drive (Cave Man method).
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
OK, now I'm REALLY showin' off. :D

Just got the new Seagate 1.5 TB drive and thought I'd see if it'd work with the Apple TV. As you can see, works just fine as an eSATA drive. It's not staying there, though - it's my replacement Media drive. Those Blu-Ray discs take up a lot more room than DVDs. ;)
 

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mrgreen4242

macrumors 601
Feb 10, 2004
4,377
9
Question for you folks doing ATV drive upgrades: you have to keep a copy of the media file on your Mac/PC, correct? So, for every gig you add to your ATV you need to have a second gig for local file storage.

Or do you move the enclosure from the ATV to your computer, update the contents, and move it back to the ATV every now and again?
 

kavika411

macrumors 6502a
Jan 8, 2006
617
3
Alabama
Greetings, Cave Man. Would you mind sharing your process, or perhaps a link, regarding the process you followed to increase your drive space. My apologies if I'm overlooking it somewhere obvious. Thank you.
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
that is sick. very nice. was looking at those drives earlier in the week

Yeah, I tried getting one the first day the appeared at NewEgg. Got distracted with other things and the next thing you know, they're sold out. The MacAlly enclosure is a bit flaky. If I daisy chain the FW with it, the desktop icons for all the drives on that chain disappear, even though they they show up in the Finder windows.

Question for you folks doing ATV drive upgrades: you have to keep a copy of the media file on your Mac/PC, correct? So, for every gig you add to your ATV you need to have a second gig for local file storage.

Your media files are stored on a hard drive that is seen by iTunes on one of your computer (i.e., its library). If you stream, then the ATV is perfectly fine out of the box. But if you sync (for better responsiveness, high-def movies, portability, et al.) then you need to increase the drive capacity of the ATV. Right now, the largest 2.5" PATA drive is 250 gb. We have modded our ATV's with a PATA to SATA adapter, which provides eSATA functionality of the ATV's hard disk bus.

Greetings, Cave Man. Would you mind sharing your process, or perhaps a link, regarding the process you followed to increase your drive space. My apologies if I'm overlooking it somewhere obvious. Thank you.

Have a look here. The last couple of people who have tried it have been running into problems. I don't know if there's been a change in the SYBA controller or what. But at least three of us have the eSATA hack up and running.
 

kavika411

macrumors 6502a
Jan 8, 2006
617
3
Alabama
Have a look here. The last couple of people who have tried it have been running into problems. I don't know if there's been a change in the SYBA controller or what. But at least three of us have the eSATA hack up and running.

Thanks, Cave Man. If there is anyone who knows more than you about digital/audio/surround/Apple TV/all-things-hackable, I know them not.
 

tom1971

macrumors 6502a
May 15, 2007
670
0
OK, now I'm REALLY showin' off. :D

Just got the new Seagate 1.5 TB drive and thought I'd see if it'd work with the Apple TV. As you can see, works just fine as an eSATA drive. It's not staying there, though - it's my replacement Media drive. Those Blu-Ray discs take up a lot more room than DVDs. ;)

Nicely done !
 
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