Can I connect a external Hard drive to my Apple TV?

[WizardHunt]

I am in the market of buying a Apple TV, and know that it comes with 40 GB or 160GB HD. I don't have a lot of money and do have extra external hard drives and was wondering can I have the apple TV pull the movies from a external drive?

If not am I forced to use my computer to copy them from the external HD to the mac, in itunes and then do it that way? If that is the case why the option of 40 GB and 160 GB?

Please clarify for me if you would be so kind.

 

[Alx9876]

Right out of the box you can't. But if you modify or hack your Apple tv then you could. But after this new update it's all in the air.

 

[WizardHunt]

Right out of the box you can't. But if you modify or hack your Apple tv then you could. But after this new update it's all in the air.

Ok, I must be in the dark about this update, What update? and what will the update do ?

 

[bentup]

Better still! Put those movies on your external, connect that to your compy, then drag them into iTunes while holding down option. This won't copy them back into your iTunes folder. Then you can sync/stream or whatever to your Apple TV and there your media will be. So you will still be stuck with the 160 GB capacity unless you hack it, but streaming really isn't that bad.

This could be annoying if your main machine is a notebook like mine, but a great solution if you are hard pressed for internal storage.

Another solution would be to use those external drives as network storage and install a media server on there. Twonky works well with iTunes, haven't tried it yet with the Apple TV tho.

EDIT: check out http://www.apple.com/appletv/ for the update details... Basically it is just to allow movie rentals through the iTunes Store, and show it off with a more attractive interface.