Hey, Everyone. I have on old ('07) Plastic Snow Leopard Macbook and I am thinking of attaching a large external HDD & using it as a media server for my ATV3.
Anyone know of any problems that may arise?
Anyone know of any problems that may arise?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
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Snow Leopard Machine & ATV3
- Thread starter CaptTCS
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That should be fine, SL supports the current iTunes. The only thing that might cause issues is downloading HD content from the iTunes store, it might not want to do so because the laptop isn't capable of playing HD content. If you download the content onto a different computer & copy it over, it'll store the files & serve them up to the ATV just fine though.
I have Snow Leopard and I can download and play 1080P HD on my Macbook just fine.
That Macbook will make an excellent server. Even serving 1080p content to multiple sources will work nicely.
But do you have a 5 year old laptop?
But do you have a 5 year old laptop?
Nope, buy my wife's is and also plays 1080P from iTunes just fine. I have the aluminum Macbook.
Thanks, All.
To clarify.. I plan to hook a 3tb external WD Drive to my newly purchased Airport Extreme, which will be connected via ethernet to the old Macbook, and to a Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem.. With iTunes on the old Macbook using my usual Apple ID, for the Apple TV.
Then, mine and my Wife's <newer> Macbook Pros also using that external drive as a shared drive, on the network.
Make sense?
To clarify.. I plan to hook a 3tb external WD Drive to my newly purchased Airport Extreme, which will be connected via ethernet to the old Macbook, and to a Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem.. With iTunes on the old Macbook using my usual Apple ID, for the Apple TV.
Then, mine and my Wife's <newer> Macbook Pros also using that external drive as a shared drive, on the network.
Make sense?
Yes, and it should work. I'd have the Apple TV hit the Airport Extreme's WiFi network directly, but have the Motorola cable modem be the DHCP master.
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2.4GHz processor is the minimum requirement as I recall. The OP's 2007 vintage will have at best a 2.0GHz.
My wife's Macbook has a 2.0GHz in her computer and I just checked to be sure.
Even if I can't download HD content with the old machine, I should still be able to DL it with my newer machine, and save it to the same library.
Right?
I assume if you are connecting the macbook via ethernet that it will be a fixed server. In that case you'd improve performance by connecting drives directly to the laptop. And if it has FW800, you'd gain a significant performane boost using firewire drives. You also might consider hooking another drive to it as a Time Machine host for all the computers in the house.
Correct. According to the Apple specs 2.4GHz is required for HD but clearly some machines lower than that will still allow content to download, but if it doesn't, just download it with another machine and copy it into the library on that Macbook.