40GB or 120GB?

[imacericg]

I am about ready to purchase an Apple TV and I was wondering if I should get the 40GB or the 120GB version?

The reason I am asking is with the new software, is there any reason you need that much more hard drive space?

I will be hooking it up to my Mac which as TONS of free space.

Enlighten me why I would need 120GB.

TIA

 

[bbydon]

I got the 160 and regret it a little bit. I have a g network and it streams just fine.
I kinda wish i saved the money and got the 40gb.
The only thing with the 40gb is your computer and itunes need to be on all the time to use the apple tv with your content. With renting or listing to podcast from itunes store your computer doesn't need to be on.

I wanted the 160gb because i could synch all my music with out having my imac. But not putting my imac to sleep isn't that big of a deal to me anymore.


If i was using my laptop for everything i would definitely get the 160.

 

[tothelimit]

the options are 40gb and 160gb ... not 120.

and along the lines of what the last post said... if you're ok with leaving your computer on full time to allow the content to stream to the appleTV, then the 40gb is probably for you. 40gb is plenty of space - even to hold multiple rentals at once.

 

[Avatar74]

I am about ready to purchase an Apple TV and I was wondering if I should get the 40GB or the 120GB version?

The reason I am asking is with the new software, is there any reason you need that much more hard drive space?

I will be hooking it up to my Mac which as TONS of free space.

Enlighten me why I would need 120GB.

TIA

If you have a g network with reasonable signal levels, you don't need a 160. You'll experience minor glitches streaming at g speeds depending on how much overhead you have. A typical G network gets about 23 Mbps of throughput, which is well above the 2-5 Mbps bitstream for SD and HD respectively. It depends on what else you've got going on simultaneously and how much interference your network encounters.

If you aren't doing nine million things on the web at the same time, or using bandwidth gobbling applications (read: poorly written), there might be issues... but in my experience you can surf the web and stream SD and HD just fine most of the time.

 

[imacericg]

Thank you for the feedback! I am goint to get the 40GB version and save my $$$.

 

[mcvaughan]

I had a 160 rev 1 ATV, but sold it before the announcement of ATV take 2. This past weekend I bought a new ATV 40 gig, and I bought the 40 because I already have a 1TB LaCie NAS where I store all my movies and music.

If you already have external storage, save yourself a few bucks and buy the 40.

 

[mchalebk]

I wanted to be able to listen to music, look at photos and watch some video without having my computer on, so I went for the 160. In particular, I wanted the simplest setup for my wife to use. For me, the extra $100 was worth it.

I wonder how many people go with the 40 only to figure out later they wish they hadn't. A year from now, will you miss the $100 you spent to get the extra capacity, or will you regret the extra capacity you didn't buy?

I just wish they'd activate the USB port and let us hook up an external drive to get much greater capacity.

 

[Jeff Hall]

All my itunes content is on a 1TB Guardian Maximus drive. I got the 40GB Apple TV because it only needs to be big enough to hold a few rental movies at a time. All my stuff is streamed (I don't sync anything with the Apple TV at all).

 

[NYLawTalkingGuy]

I am one of those that bought the 40G and then regretted not spending the extra $100 for the 160G. Between my music, movies, tv shows, music videos and photos, I only have about 6G's left on the TV, and I still have about 100 CDs to import. I'm figuring, however, that once I plunk down the dough for Time Capsule, I can move all my video content to that hard drive and stream (though that raises a question maybe someone can answer - will the TV recognize my synced content as well as content streamed from another computer, or is it one or the other at any given time?).

 

[bilbo--baggins]

It's probably more environmentally friendly to get the 160GB version to minimise the need to keep your computer switched on. You might save money in the long term on electricity bills too.

 

[harcosparky]

I followed a golden rule when making my decision....

Tis better to have and not need, then to need and not have.

Yeah, I opted for the 160.

Initially I had some issues unrelated to the HDD, but having worked through all of them the value of having the 160 shined through.

I went to my sisters house for a dinner, they have a humongous widescreen HDTV.

I unplugged my ATV and took it along. Hooked it into their system and amazed them with the massive menu of movies available WITHOUT a computer!!!

I am more than happy I got the 160, it makes my library really portable!