SATA adapter for internal Apple TV drive?

Alright, I got the 90 degree adapter, and it doesn't fit with the wireless card in the chasis. Looks like it's time to call advantech and break out the dremmel

As a complete side note, the Boxee Patch is quite possibly the coolest mod I've ever used (Just installed it last night).... still can't wait to have 500GB in this bad boy though.

ecifer said:

Alright, I got the 90 degree adapter, and it doesn't fit with the wireless card in the chasis. Looks like it's time to call advantech and break out the dremmel

Click to expand...

Great stuff!! Advantech won't sell to the public as they are a wholesale type place, therefore you need to be VAT registered to order from them. They put me on to a company that deals with them, and they were very helpful. However, it took the best part of 2 months to get the adapter delivered, which is very annoying when all you want to do is tinker!! Have fun, and let us know how you get on

It might be different in the U.S., but I just called them, gave them my CC info, and they're shipping me out the board

mikeinternet said:

Is it possible for apple to announce. "now you can plug in an external usb drive"?? Would be awesome even though it kind of voids the hard work.

Click to expand...

You can do this by patching your aTV. No big deal.

Alright, so got the board from advantech, got the dremmel from a friend, and presto! Modification done and working...

... for all intents and purposes...

... except for that little 'heat' problem.

richyscot1- I'm wondering how you're avoiding the fact that when you mount the hard drive upside down (as it is show in your pictures), the exhaust port (labelled "DO NOT COVER") is covered by the base of the aTV? I just went ahead and screwed everything in, and within about 5 hours (of constant usage backing up the iTunes DB), the system locked up. If I keep the bottom unscrewed, everything is happy, but by screwing it in (and pressing against the drive with the base of the unit), it just gets hot and stops working.

ecifer said:

richyscot1- I'm wondering how you're avoiding the fact that when you mount the hard drive upside down (as it is show in your pictures), the exhaust port (labelled "DO NOT COVER") is covered by the base of the aTV? I just went ahead and screwed everything in, and within about 5 hours (of constant usage backing up the iTunes DB), the system locked up. If I keep the bottom unscrewed, everything is happy, but by screwing it in (and pressing against the drive with the base of the unit), it just gets hot and stops working.

Click to expand...

I've not had any problems with overheating at all. I would hazard a guess that it is as hot as the standard Apple TV configuration.

FYI, mine is not bolted down.

I took the little buffer-pad that Apple had attached to the original hard drive (About 3/4"x.5" in the upper left hand corner), and mounted that to the drive, right near the exhaust port. I also LIGHTLY screwed the base back on (so as to not apply excessive pressure.

... it seems to be happy with that solution, the pad ensures that the hole is not completely covered. One other thing I needed to do was to place some non-conductive tape over the contacts on the MiniIDE->SATA converter... they were touching the base and causing a short which prevented the unit from even turning on

... fingers crossed

ecifer said:

One other thing I needed to do was to place some non-conductive tape over the contacts on the MiniIDE->SATA converter... they were touching the base and causing a short which prevented the unit from even turning on

Click to expand...

You're obviously doing better than me.....it took me over an hour to figure out why my apple TV refused to work once I'd got it all screwed down

Ecifer - Could you give more us more info on the 90 degree connector you bought

ecifer said:

Alright, I got the 90 degree adapter, and it doesn't fit with the wireless card in the chasis. Looks like it's time to call advantech and break out the dremmel

As a complete side note, the Boxee Patch is quite possibly the coolest mod I've ever used (Just installed it last night).... still can't wait to have 500GB in this bad boy though.

Click to expand...

Hello -

You mentioned that this 90 degree adapter -

http://usb.brando.com.hk/prod_detail.php?prod_id=00854&cat_id=032&dept_id=015

doesn't fit with the wireless card in the chassis. Is the reason it doesn't fit is that it doesn't fit with the hard drive attached OR is that the the adapter simply won't fit on the board.

I ask because I'd think of just attaching an sata -> esta extension cable to the card and using it to create an external eSATA port and going that route. I'd simply permanently remove the originial Apple tV hard drive and boot from an external sata drive in an enclosure.

Why not just use the Advantech adapter.....http://www.advantech.com.tw/products/SATA-to-IDE-(44-pin)-Converter-Module/mod_1-2QF48V.aspx

Two of us have used this adapter successfully

Richscot1 - Thanks for the quick reply.

Hi -

I saw your posting and pictures on page 1 of this thread and want to make sure I understand you completely. It looks like you did the following 4 steps, which frankly seems so easy that I want to double-check.

1. You used the stock cable that was already attaching the board to the original stock ATV drive.

2. You then attached the advantec adapter you linked to this original cable.

3. You then hooked up a 2.5" SATA drive.

4. You dremeled the case to get it all to fit.


A few questions about the above....

1. You had to dremel the cable - was it the side that attached to the board or to the Advantech adapter.

2. How much did you pay for the adapter? (I can't seem to pull up a price for it, though I've emailed them)

3. An example new sata drive should be something like this, right? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148371&Tpk=ST9500325AS

4. If I didn't want to dremel the case and was willing to go the external route, do you think I could just attach some sort of 2.5 sata to esata cable to the Advantech card? Does something like this makes sense: http://www.cooldrives.com/esexcaitolex.html I'd obviously then hook it up to an external enclosure to power the drive.

Final questions - It sounds like you've been happy with your all-internal solution. Once you figured out the non-conductive tape issue, were there any other issues? It doesn't sound like you've had any problem powering the drive or with any excess heat.....



This forum is awesome by the way! Thanks again for the help.

Ray

1) I had to remove the cable grab handle from both sides of the cable. If you spread the handle it comes off very easily.

2) I paid £15 plus VAT for the adapter. I had to pay £15 delivery as well. This was due to the fact that I live in the UK, and Advantech won't sell to somebody without a VAT number, and I therefore had to go through a stockist. I used APC (http://www.apc-plc.co.uk), they were very helpful.

3) That drive looks absolutely fine to me.

4) That cable looks like just a data cable to me, whereas you require power + data. Caveman (or anyone else??) may be a little more clued up on that sort of thing, and therefore may be a little better equipped to help you. Although, I can't see why you'd want to go down the 2.5 inch drive route if you were going to mount externally? If that's what you were going to do I'd just do what Caveman did and buy a huge 3.5" drive (1Tb +)....i.e. esata mod

Finally, I know ecifer had a few problems with their AppleTV overheating, but I believe they are all sorted now? I've had my AppleTV constantly running for the past 4 days now (as I've been away from home), playing a television series on a continuous loop (using a playlist). My AppleTV is hot, but.....not hot enough to cause any problems (certainly no hotter than it was when I had the standard 40Gb, Apple supplied hard drive), and it seems to be working flawlessly. So I have no problems to report at all

It is a very snug fit, but I've got a 2.5" SATA inside my ATV with it all closed up, and not having any issues. The items that I purchased are the IDE-to-SATA adapter (here) and the 8" 22-pin male-to-female SATA cable (here).

When mounting the hard drive to the bottom case, I turned it around so there is more room to route the cables.

stevietech said:

It is a very snug fit, but I've got a 2.5" SATA inside my ATV with it all closed up, and not having any issues. The items that I purchased are the IDE-to-SATA adapter (here) and the 8" 22-pin male-to-female SATA cable (here).

When mounting the hard drive to the bottom case, I turned it around so there is more room to route the cables.

Click to expand...

Ok so my 160Gb ATV is FULL!! I need to upgrade and so am going to try this. I have ordered the IDE-to-SATA adapter and the 8" 22-pin male-to-female SATA cable from the US. I wanted to know if your ATV was still running without any issues and what HD did you use. I have noticed a lot of you guys have upgraded to 500GD and was wondering if I could use the Western Digital SCORPIO 1TB SATA 3 GB/S 2.5IN 12.5MM 5400RPM 8MB CACHE with this configuration?

Has anyone upgraded to a 1Tb HD?

BURNMYPC said:

I have noticed a lot of you guys have upgraded to 500GD and was wondering if I could use the Western Digital SCORPIO 1TB SATA 3 GB/S 2.5IN 12.5MM 5400RPM 8MB CACHE with this configuration?
Has anyone upgraded to a 1Tb HD?

Click to expand...

The trouble with the 1Tb is that it has a physical height of 12.5mm in size, compared to the normal 9.5mm of 2.5in disks. You should be able to use it, but you may have trouble closing your Apple TV back up after.
I use the 500Gb version along with both the adapter and SATA cable mentioned and this screws perfectly back into the Apple TV closure, albeit a little tight as stevietech mentions.

bucksaddle said:

The trouble with the 1Tb is that it has a physical height of 12.5mm in size, compared to the normal 9.5mm of 2.5in disks. You should be able to use it, but you may have trouble closing your Apple TV back up after.
I use the 500Gb version along with both the adapter and SATA cable mentioned and this screws perfectly back into the Apple TV closure, albeit a little tight as stevietech mentions.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this, would have made a big mistake with the HHD I have been looking around for alternatives but it looks like the biggest I can find with the same physical specs is the WD 640Gb, so I guess I'm going to go with that. As soon as all my bits arrive and I've completed the process I'll post back here. Thanks again for the advice.

External enclosure

Is there an external enclosure the 22 pin male to female SATA cable would attach to if someone wanted to use the larger 1TB drive mentioned (Granted you would order the longer cable and mod the ATV to thread outside the ATV case)?

Updating ATV OS after the SATA HDD swap?

I upgraded my ATV to the 500GB SATA Hitachi "green" drive that offered almost identical power dissipation spec as the original Fujitsu 40GB drive. I went down the path outlined by stevietech and everything fits perfectly and the overall heat during operation is lower to the touch than before.

Now the only problem I have discovered is that all attempts to update the ATV OS fails. Running the ATV hardware diags shows that everything passes, so I suspect that the PATA to SATA card is causing something to fail during the POST while updating. I had to reinstall my original 40GB drive, do the upgrade, then transfer the image over to the 500GB drive. With the 3.0.1 update, I tried it again, but again it failed. So, back to the 40GB upgrade path. I actually tried to clone the OSBoot partition after upgrading the 40GB over to the same partition on the 500GB, but it refused to reboot on the ATV afterwards (used SuperDuper). So, I just used dd and then a resync. I was just trying to see if was possible to not have to resync all my ripped DVDs (mp4).

Is my experience typical or have others been successful updating with the PATA/SATA converter card in the loop. Everything works perfectly with 3.0.1 once I clone the updated 40 over to the 500 along with the resize on the Media partition.

David

Hmm, well the only experience I had was outlined in my blog for my Problem child drive: http://dynaflashtech.net/2009/08/18/atv-drive-problem-children/

Now as it says there, it worked, just couldn't restore (though it did update okay) Not sure if its the same phenomenon or not, but latest atvcloner using large drive formatting did fix it. Restores and updates up to 3.01 just fine.

Beyond that I am at a loss. It is very strange.

umm

Cave Man said:

If anyone is interested, I came across this new PATA to SATA bridge that looks just small enough that it might be usable in an Apple TV to replace the internal PATA drive with a SATA drive. It would simply go between the SATA drive and connect to the ribbon cable of the Apple TV. Of course, this leads to the possibility of having a 500 gb internal drive for the ATV, and larger when those drives become available. Here are a few unknowns:

• Will it fit inside the ATV with sufficient clearance so the bottom can be attached?
• Will it work with the ATV? It provides a 5V line from the 44-pin ribbon, which the eSATA mod doesn't.

If I had another Apple TV I'd give this a try. Looks like the only cost would be a new 500 gb drive (<$100) and the bridge ($25 or so with shipping). Anyone willing to give it a try?

Click to expand...

i just bought this and im gonna try it i upgraded from a 40 to a 80 but this looks right to fit in atv

stevietech said:

It is a very snug fit, but I've got a 2.5" SATA inside my ATV with it all closed up, and not having any issues. The items that I purchased are the IDE-to-SATA adapter (here) and the 8" 22-pin male-to-female SATA cable (here).

When mounting the hard drive to the bottom case, I turned it around so there is more room to route the cables.

Click to expand...

Did you have to do any permanent modifications to the ATV case to get it all to fit? Anyone who has used stevietech's method, could you please post a step by step on how this works?

Thanks!

Brando adapter

I haven't read this thread carefully, but in case anyone is having trouble with the Brando SATA/IDE adapter sold as of 1/30/2010 at http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/bdbf/, I found that
1 - SATA/300 drives need to be jumpered to limit them to SATA/150
2 - IDE drives cannot be jumpered for cable select; they must be manually set to 'master.'

(I have not tested the device with ATAPI drives.)

Cheers.

lubu said:

i just bought this and im gonna try it i upgraded from a 40 to a 80 but this looks right to fit in atv

Click to expand...

Did it work?

Brando Board Shipping Time

Hi All,

Thanks for the great posts on this topic. I decided to go with Richyscot1's setup and I ordered all of my supplies. I have the drive (Samsung Spinpoint 640GB) and the cable, but I'm waiting on my board from Brando. Can anyone who ordered it give me an idea of how long it took you to receive it? It says 7-20 days on their site, and my order says it was shipped on 2/27, so I'm kind of anxious to get it since this is the only thing holding me up from getting to work. I've cloned the HD already too...so now I'm basically twiddling my thumbs.

Thanks!