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Western Digital My Book Mac Edition 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

A

apramanik

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
25
0
San Francisco, CA. USA
Can I use the "Western Digital My Book Mac Edition 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive" with Apple TV, patched by aTV Flash - Mac from Fire Core LLC?

If so I like to use this to expand my Dire Core's aTV Flash added Apple TV's capacity by using the above drive(Western Digital My Book Mac Edition 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive) attached at USB.

If any one has implemented, please let me know, thanks in advance.:)
 
Same dilemma

First off I want to say I love my Apple TV. That being said I wish it had a bigger HD to sync all my HD movies. :D I recently hacked it to allow for an external USB HD. I'm trying to decide between 3 external HD's to attach? Any help or pros and cons to any of them would be greatly appreciated. They are in no particular order

1. WD my passport essential SE 1TB
2. OWC Mercury on the go 1TB
3. G-tech mini 500gb or G-tech 1TB drive

Now my concern is storage capacity, longevity, durability, reliability and aesthetics if possible, since it will be sitting in my living room.

My research seems to point that the g-tech drives are reliable and durable however the mini only comes in 500gb and that will fill up quickly and the bigger g-drive is bigger size wise than I was looking for. I'm also concerned about cooling. I can't seem to find how the my passport's are cooled, fan I'm assuming.
So which one would you choose or have any experience with? I'm also open to any other suggestions.

Thanks
 
My setup uses WD My Book Essential

I hacked my ATV usigng aTVFlash over a year ago and hooked up the first WD to the usb and it worked fine. Since then my library of non-iTunes movies and TV shows has grown and I now have 3 WD 1TB drives attached via a usb hub to my Airport Extreme and I can simultaneously stream to both the living room and the bedroom ATV's. I bought the first WD before the Mac Editions came out and re-formatted it to HFS+. I got 2 more over time because they were cheaper. So my experience is that the WD is a good choice. I would expect the pre-HFS+ formatted Mac Edition to work well too.

One has been in service for a year (990+GB), another about 6 months (900+GB) and the recently purchased only a month (500+GB) and I have had no problems to-date. I may get another one for Christmas :)

What I don't have (yet) is a backup device. Have the orginal DVD's as backup. Thinking about NAS but that cost $$$$.
 
Will the USB port of an ATV (hacked with aTVflash) power a single external hard drive? or would i need a seperate power supply for the external HD?
 
I use a 500 GB WD on my ATV. Works just fine attached to the ATV with aTV Flash in place. No worries and concern. Thing that makes me happiest is that I can sync all my iTunes content to the ATV and don't need to have my MacBook Pro on to sync content. This made the device much more usable for my wife as she does not like jumping through hoops to get things to work.
 
External hard drive

Bevz said:
Will the USB port of an ATV (hacked with aTVflash) power a single external hard drive? or would i need a seperate power supply for the external HD?
Click to expand...

Your external drive will need it's own power supply. The ATV USB port will not power an external drive.
 
The WD My Book will be a great addition to the Apple TV. I have 2 - 500GB My Books attached to the bedroom Apple TV. One holds TV shows and the other ripped DVD's. In the Home Theater I just this weekend attached a 1TB My Book to that Apple TV. All of them work just great. I don't stream movies I prefer to have the direct connected hard drives. Plus it helps that there are 2 copies so if for some reason one of them dies I have that other as backup. I use a powered USB hub for the bedroom 2 HD's but its a direct connection to the Apple TV in the Home theater.
I have always used My Books as external HD's for my computers so in total I have 6 My books (and another 1.5TB being sent to me from Best Buy this week) and I have not had any problems in the 4+ years that I have been using them.
 
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