Filed under: Hardware, How-tos, Apple TV
Engadget shows us how to swap out your Apple TV's HD
Ban Drawbaugh over at our sister site Engadget has a fantastic tutorial up about upgrading your Apple TV's harddrive. As David pointed out, the stock 40 gig harddrive just isn't going to cut it for most people (my iPod is 80 gigs for goodness sake). Ben uses the Terminal to do the drive cloning (though I imagine for those of you who avoid the Terminal I am sure you could use Carbon Copy Cloner) and iPartition to resize the media partition.
Go forth and hack!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jordan said 11:51PM on 3-24-2007
Ohh, I could go for a 200gb upgrade. Theres never been enough space on my tivo.
Jo
http://www.cerealinsider.com
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Ben said 12:03AM on 3-25-2007
I don't think CCC will do the trick, but you can use Subrosasoft’s CopyCatX for $50.
You have to be able to do a bit level backup of the HD.
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James said 12:36AM on 3-25-2007
Again I have to ask:
With streaming over wireless-G (let alone wireless-N) being virtually indistinguishable from running content right of the hard drive, why all the obsession with upgrading the hard drive on these things? I realize some out there have an obsession with not having the computer on for streaming, but that can't account for all this trouble.
For the record: video and music over wireless G = no lag or stutter.
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Bob said 1:55AM on 3-25-2007
Any confirmation on CCC working?
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mitcho said 10:37AM on 3-25-2007
I would recommend my favorite tool, SuperDuper!
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mck said 11:46AM on 3-25-2007
I'm with you, James, on my 802.11g network streaming both video and music is fine. Music is pretty much instantaneous and video takes about 5 seconds to load up.
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agl said 12:27PM on 3-25-2007
Here's the ultimate in media preservation... thanks to the apple tv. (i haven't tried it, but given everyone's results so far, and knowing it works with a mac mini, it should work).
0. read all instructions first, then tailor them to fit your design / visual needs. [ because if you are going to do this, you should know from the instructions the details to do it ]
1. buy 2 large 3.5" hard drives [ say 500 GB+ ] and a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter
2. Get two inclosures you can live with.
3. hook one HD up to your computer and load your whole iTunes library on it / and make it the default.
4. hook up the second drive to the tv and enclosure.
5. sync them up.
Now you have a full copy of all your media. one on the computer, and one on the Apple TV. You can take your library with you to a friends house also. [as it's on an external hard drive and the apple tv]
to select which library you use on itunes or iphoto, hold down the option key while launching the application. (sure there's something similar on the PC).
Good luck. Wonder if it will work with those 1000GB HDs. haven't checked to see what connectors those will use.
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agl said 12:31PM on 3-25-2007
one other note. To date, I have used Disk Utility to do all of my back up and restores of hard drives. No need for all the other applications on the market. Disk Utility handles moving all the hidden files etc, moving from different size disks, backing up to a file, backing up multiple partitions, single partition... Just use the image utility if you want to back up to a file. Use the restore option and drag your source and destination disks / partitions if you want to just move the stuff over. May make things go quicker, as you already have the software installed on your computer. Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app
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JeffDM said 1:03PM on 3-25-2007
Does Disk Utility avoid copying over files that haven't changed? I use SuperDuper because it saves so much time by avoiding that. It's not going to change much for copying to a clean drive (like in this case), but for regular backups, SD is better.
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agl said 3:39PM on 3-25-2007
Disk Utility does not allow for updating only changed files. That may be a feature added to the Leopard version, don't know. You can use rsync or other software to do that part for you if you like. So, i can see why you like the other program for those benefits. For businesses and important data, I prefer to make separate back-ups, just in case a file gets corrupt. I also tend to separate files, so i can back up important data more frequently, and try to keep things on separate drives as much as possible -- ie, music and photos on separate drive than those important files. Of note, important files can be stored in a .dmg file with encryption, giving you extra security [ if you don't save the password in the keychain ] and if you like hard backups, you can make the dmg file fit nicely on a cd, dvd, dvd-dl, etc.
I'll have to look at SD sometime and give it a try.
when it comes to upgrading Hard drives etc, disk utility rocks. It's also on all the Mac OS X install DVDs, so you can boot off the dvd and use it.
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Billabong said 4:59PM on 3-25-2007
Now what do you do when the first update, renders your appletv useless... Wouldn't that suck... But I guess if your gonna hack it. Then you will not be doing any updates...
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JeffDM said 5:46PM on 3-25-2007
I wouldn't say that an update would render AppleTV useless with a non-stock drive any more than if you had upgraded the hard drive in your Mac and run Software Update. I suppose there is a chance that it's possible, but I think it's very unlikely.
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LD said 7:21PM on 3-25-2007
Does it actually take advantage of the increased space? Or does it simply have more space yet not use it?
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