The ingenious thing of this device, Apple TV is the fact that while streaming – the process of sending data from one device to another – you have the possibility to watch the movie, TV show or anything else you stream directly on the device you want to receive. So it’s not necessary to wait till the whole program arrived to the destination.
Why would you need an external drive? Though the music library is over 40 gigs, the video is even larger you’ll not be able to use Apple TV to its fully automated sync and have in the same time access to all your contents. This is one of the reasons why you should use an external drive. Many would say why not to plug a USB hard drive. Because of service reasons.
The bad parts of this device are: it does not support Pandora, it doesn’t work with non-widescreen TVS, the movies that you rent have to be watched within 24 hours, the remote will not be able to control other devices.
You definitely need a hard drive if you want to copy the contents from your tv, extend the memory capacity or reformate your drive.
What are the thing you need for adding a hard drive to your Apple TV? IDE Hadr Drive Sled, putty knife, Torx 8 and 10 screwdrivers and adhesive. In just 10 steps you’ll fnish your work. First you have to take away the rubber form the bottom of the Apple (use a putty knife). Secondly remove the Torx screws located in each corner. After payng off the back panel remove the other remaining Torx screw. You also need to take away the ribbon attached to the hard drive. With the help of the hard drive sled connect the existing drive to Apple computer. Copy its content. In the terminal type the word “diskutil list”. In this way yu’ll have access to all the names of your hard drives. Disconnect the existing drive and connect the new one. After copying the content of the new drive using the command “dd if=/dev/yourname of=/Users/yourname/appleTVDrive-Compressed.img bs=1024k” connect the drive to your Apple TV and put back the Torx screws.
If you want to upgrade your hard drive from Apple TV after removing all the TORX screws connect the IDE cable to an USB adapter. After connecting this adapter to your MAC laptop type “dd if=/dev/disk2 of=/Users/Engadget/AppleTV.img bs=1024k ” in the terminal. With this command you’ll copy the content of the drive, after locating it with the command “diskutil”. After setting up the drive you’ll be able to add a new partition. Use the command “diskutil eraseVolume "Journaled HFS+" Media /dev/disk2s4” to format the disk. If there are no spotlight files eject the disk and reinstall it in your apple Tv.
Still if you think it’s too hard for you to do this kind of things take your Apple TV to professionals upgrade service.
What would you do? Will you try to change or upgrade your hard drive from Apple TV by yourself or will you choose professional service?