Can the LAN connection be used for external storage?

[Gjwilly]

What would happen if you plugged a NAS into the LAN jack on the ATV2?
Over at the ATVFlash site they talk about their media player being able to play from external storage drives and I'm wondering how one would do that with the ATV2 and its lack of USB.

 

[crewkid89]

atv does have a USB port which has led to a lot of confusion. It is a USB client not a host. The port is there so you can plug it into a computer to restore the software (or jailbreak it). Your idea is interesting in theory but I can't thnk of any way to make it work. You would need to use a crossover cable but I am not sure if the atv supports that type of network connection. However if you are going to use Ethernet anyways, why not just plug the NAS into a router and attach it that way? You would essentially accomplish the same thing without doing anything unsupported.

 

[bwthor]

I've wondered about NAS as well. I figured that they were possibly using the mini USB port on the back to an external USB drive, or they were jailbroken and connecting to it through the regular network.

 

[maturola]

What would happen if you plugged a NAS into the LAN jack on the ATV2?
Over at the ATVFlash site they talk about their media player being able to play from external storage drives and I'm wondering how one would do that with the ATV2 and its lack of USB.

No it cannot (at this time).

I don't believe that they media player is able to do that on the ATV2, i believe what they said is that they can play media from PC, MAc or NAS using AFP and SMB. (however they do say that for the original ATV)