?Best Hard Drive for eSata AppleTV Mod?

[TheStork]

I now have an external case with an eSata interface as well as all the parts & pieces to perform dynaflash's ATV mod (see Handbrake forum thread in the Tiki Bar). The Western Digitals Greens - WDxxEARS/EADS are good price for sizes. However, from dynaflash's last info on his external Western Digital Studio, 7200 rpm 3.5" drives give the best performance. So, I'm looking at the Western Digital 1TB (WD1001FALS) or the 1.5TB (WD15EVDS) drives at ~$100 and $120, respectively.

So, for those of you with experience with external eSata drives on your ATV, what's your recommendation? TIA.


HB Tiki Bar thread: http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5999

 

[Transporteur]

I don't have experiences with Apple TV, but I'm pretty confident that the WD Black drives are not the right ones for you.

The Blacks are fast, no doubt, but you pay the speed with a lot of noise, really nothing I'd like to have in my media center.
A 1TB Black (FALS) makes about 100MB/s read and write (sequential), whereas a Green drive with the same capacity reaches about 85MB/s. So you loose 15% of speed, but you get a cooler and much more quiet drive.

A Black for the Apple TV is really not needed. For what does the TV need 100MB/s throughput? It won't get faster!