USB drives using a hub?

[MoodyM]

Currently I have a 2.5TB powered external HD loaded with content plugged directly into my Mid-2010 MBP's USB port. I then use my Apple TV 3rd gen to stream the content.

If I wanted to add more storage, could I simply connect a USB hub, then connect as many drives as the hub can take to the hub?

Would there be a performance hit? Would they show up as separate volumes in OS X?

 

[webworks415]

There would be no performance hit, a hub just multiplies the number of ports at your disposal. So everything plugged into it is recognized as an individual drive, and not as one massive volume

Although I'm assuming you are streaming through iTunes to your ATV, I'm pretty sure you can not pull content from multiple drives and store it all in one single iTunes library. Each drive would have to be its own separate library (hold shift when opening iTunes and you get the option to choose a library)

 

[MoodyM]

Thanks. I guess the only hit would be of you used two of the drives at the same time?

And you CAN use more than 1 volume for iTunes media, I simply hold Opt/Alt when I drag movies into iTunes, which leaves them on their source drive rather copying them into your iTunes media folder.

 

[gr8tfly]

...
Although I'm assuming you are streaming through iTunes to your ATV, I'm pretty sure you can not pull content from multiple drives and store it all in one single iTunes library. Each drive would have to be its own separate library (hold shift when opening iTunes and you get the option to choose a library)

Not true. You can do it all with a single library. Just turn off the "Copy to iTunes Media Folder" (iTunes Preferences > Advanced) when adding items to your library that reside on the external hard drive.

My media folder resides in my internal drive. I keep all my music and books there, but all my movies and TV shows are on an external drive. I've been doing that since the 1st gen Apple TV. I've recently added the 3rd gen and stream video from that ext. drive.

The only downside is sometimes forgetting to reenable the setting for media I actually want in the media folder (or remembering to disable it when adding movies). Which reminds me I should point out that I also move purchased video, once they're downloaded, to the external. When you do that, iTunes will ask you to locate the media file. You can trigger that just by getting info on the video from within iTunes - something you would need to do before trying to stream from the Apple TV.

It's a bit of a bother to do some of those steps, but you only need to do it once. If the drive is uncounted, iTunes would only care if you were trying to access the file.

 

[MoodyM]

Not true. You can do it all with a single library. Just turn off the "Copy to iTunes Media Folder" (iTunes Preferences > Advanced) when adding items to your library that reside on the external hard drive.

My media folder resides in my internal drive. I keep all my music and books there, but all my movies and TV shows are on an external drive. I've been doing that since the 1st gen Apple TV. I've recently added the 3rd gen and stream video from that ext. drive.

The only downside is sometimes forgetting to reenable the setting for media I actually want in the media folder (or remembering to disable it when adding movies)

Just do what I do - leave the setting enabled, but Option-drag movies, etc, into iTunes when you import them, this effectively overrides that setting, allowing you to leave it on the rest of the time!

 

[gr8tfly]

Just do what I do - leave the setting enabled, but Option-drag movies, etc, into iTunes when you import them, this effectively overrides that setting, allowing you to leave it on the rest of the time!

Thanks - never occurred to me to try that!