My 750 gig Apple TV

SATA controller

The controller is remarkably light on documentation, but strapping drives together into RAIDs wasn't listed in the feature list, so I'm assuming it won't do it. I suppose in theory one might drop the components from the 10.4.8 combo updater in and have the ATV do a software RAID, but it's one more thing for it to do, one more place to spend memory and CPU on an operation at playback time, so I'm reluctant to go that route.

Thanks for responding. It was your original PATA->SATA hack that inspired my hack.

I've been thinking about getting a 1st gen Apple TV for a while to use with my 72" rear projection. It doesn't have HDMI or optical audio so the 720p and composite connectors are perfect, and I'm tired of putting stuff on the iPad and plugging it in with the av adapter: it's too much of a pain/I'm too lazy.

While looking at upgrading the hdd I came across this thread and a couple things sparked my memory:

I saw this some time ago. Basically what ubergeek was talking about, however the connectors are laying flat... and pointing in the wrong direction. But it does support basic raid levels and it's sata II. The biggest downside I see with something like this is the loss of your internal wifi because where I want to place mine wifi is definitely needed.

And Caveman, your esata mod made me think of the miniStack Max and I was wondering if you had ever tried any external DVD drives and had any success.

kcterry said:

I've been thinking about getting a 1st gen Apple TV for a while to use with my 72" rear projection. It doesn't have HDMI or optical audio so the 720p and composite connectors are perfect, and I'm tired of putting stuff on the iPad and plugging it in with the av adapter: it's too much of a pain/I'm too lazy.

Click to expand...

I'm replying to the "lazy" part of your post: if you have an iPad2 and Apple tv 2 as minimum spec for Airplay then the "lazy" part is solved...

HDMI in to Component out with this product or something close then HDMI issue is solved for the 72" ..

Cave Man said:

I've not tried external DVD drives since the ATV doesn't see them. However, if you put XBMC on it, it might work. Dynaflash would be the best one to ask.

Click to expand...

Sorry I should have extrapolated a bit on my first post. I saw ubergeeks first post:

ubergeek72 said:

I have the AppleTV (original silver) talking to the SATA adapter, after copying the 10.4.8 (must be this version) IOPCIFamily.kext, IOAHCIFamily.kext and AppleAHCIPort.kext extensions into /system/library/extensions, and I've sorted out having those extensions loaded automatically at boot time from /etc/rc.local.

Click to expand...

And I guess my real question should have been did you try adding kexts to support a DVD drive like he did a sata controller, but your response effectively answered that question as well I suppose.
Not going to mess around with XBMC. I like my software as vanilla as possible.

iPhil said:

I'm replying to the "lazy" part of your post: if you have an iPad2 and Apple tv 2 as minimum spec for Airplay then the "lazy" part is solved...

HDMI in to Component out with this product or something close then HDMI issue is solved for the 72" ..

Click to expand...

Only an iPad 1 Phil. Moot point really: I want to avoid putting stuff on the iPad, and I have everything contained on a file server with the exception of my music which is on a 4tb in my desktop. Regardless, I can and would Airplay from other places, and I have a 3rd gen I can do that to. Whenever I originally looked all it seemed I could find were HDMI to component and then I was having trouble finding a digital to analog audio. It might have been that I was trying to use the DVI port on it which doesn't support audio, so I was looking specifically for an audio converter and wasn't finding anything around town (I swear, I might as well live in the boonies for all the computer stores we have. It is ridiculously aggravating) and didn't want to bother ordering something at the time. I honestly don't remember. But I kind of want to avoid adapters like that. It's just one more thing I would have to mess around with and find a spot to plug in ect. ect. I like a clean and streamlined installation. Plus I can honestly say I like the mini sized tv design better than the tiny footprint of the 2nd and 3rd gen. I don't know why, it just seems TOO small to me.