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the ATV2 does have a usb port, its a micro USB port, but as far as I am aware, there are no host drivers available so you couldn't use it with an external drive. However, you do need to use it in the jailbreak process that then allows you to install XBMC.
I've never used a pogo device like that, but there are a lot of routes you can consider. First being either that pogo thing, another being upgrade to a router that allows USB sharing - which means plug an external drive into the router, and anyone can see it on your network. Or go full on and build a datadump server, which is basically a small, cheap little box that just stores your hard drives you want to use for all your movies, music, tv shows, photos, etc that will stream to XBMC on the ATV2 or what ever you build.
A NAS device does not have to be big, loud, or power hungry. You can build something that is scarcely bigger than that ATV2 depending on how much storage you want. Do you know how much you are going to need? 1tb? 2tb? 6tb? more/less? And how much you are willing to spend. From there we can build a list that is well suited to your needs.
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I have a 2 TB USB 3.0 external that I was hoping to use, and I really don't want to spend more than $100 for the NAS if i'm already going to spend $100 for the ATV2...otherwise I might as well just build my own box for XBMC.
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Dumb ?
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2011-03-21, 17:57
(This post was last modified: 2011-03-21, 18:06 by Dumb ?.)
Prepare to spend over $250 for a NAS device. Plus if you decide to purchase another ATV2 or XBMC PC later, you'll have the storage portion already in place.
I have a D-Link 321 (2 bay w/2TB mirrored) that handles my media storage. I think I paid $80 for the NAS and $90 for the 2 x 2TB HDDs. Uploading to the NAS is slow but it handle my data with no prblems (to date).
If you are looking for a ready made solution, I would look at the Synology and QNAP NAS solutions. They offer a lot of flexibility with their devices for the price. I'll probably end up getting the Synology 211 or 211+ in the near future. If you are looking to build one from scratch, I would search this forum as there are very competent guys (Poofy & Eskro come to mind) that has knowledge in such builds.
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seand
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On my non-Broadcom ATV1s 720p plays fine from a cheapie NAS on router. Or rather I should say limitations are from the ATV1s non-Broadcom enhanced hardware limitations - i.e. if it plays at all networking is not the issue.
I run an ASUS n-16 router with Tomato USB firmware and cheapie 2TB WD Elements USB HD for the NAS. Works great. WD Elements 2TB is $99 at Best Buy and the Asus router is around that on Amazon. The router has a USB port for adding drives to and the open-source firmware (Tomato USB) makes it more stable and expands what you can do with the router.
A couple of things. First loading the Tomato USB firmware the first time requires a PC and I'm a Mac guy usually. Second performance of the router-NAS is apparently improved by formatting the drive for Linux-friendly Ext3 file format as opposed to NTFS or Fat32. I reformatted the drive by making a Ubuntu Live CD on my MacBook and booting it from the CD to reformat the drive. I guess if you are really good in the line command stuff you can make the router reformat the drive itself but honestly thats beyond my skills.
Setting up shares in Tomato's interface is dead easy and I have no problem editing files from my MacBook via SMB.
Beyond that I was able to install Transmission on the router itself as "optware" so the router does the boring bit torrent stuff. I set Transmission's watched folder for new torrents to chew on its own dedicated SMB share (different from the Downloads folder) so its easy for various programs like TED or TV Shows or Sick Beard to que up auto downloads. Tweaking Transmission's preferences for watched folders etc. is best done in its json preference file but you have to edit that anyway when you set it up to "white list" local ip addresses so you can access its web interface for controls. You can get info on the Tomato USB forum.
Of course while this is fine for movies, a real NAS will allow you to run a RAID configuration and have redudancy to protect your data in event of a HD crash. So there is a benefit to paying for "real" NAS.
I have also in the past used a USB portable drive connected to my ATV1's USB port as the lowest grade of cheap video library storage. You can even add SMB to the ATV1 mutant Mac OS to make its shares visible over the network. And videos play fast from local drive of course.
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seand
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2011-03-21, 22:30
(This post was last modified: 2011-03-21, 22:36 by seand.)
You also mentioned wireless specifically. The thing is if you are doing real HD (like files that are saved at 1080p or very high bit rates) anyway you are starting t push up against real world wireless limitations if you want zero buffering so you might want to run some ethernet cable to your XBMC box anyway rather than depend on wireless with any NAS set up, even a good one. But average bit rate xvids and mkv's up to 720 do reasonably well on my ATV1's both with its puny processor, with only very occasional network related buffering from the wireless connections. The wireless limitations in my experience kick-in before or about the same time unenhanced ATV1 processor limitations do.
Its just even a very fast gigabit NAS is still going to lose some of its speed if you are connecting wirelessly, which is why I'm stringing some cable in the next week or so.
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surprised no one suggested making a freenas box as an alternative solution (freenas.org). hardware can be any old junk computer (I built one out of my sisters old amd althon xp but if you dont have one you can try ebay to get someone old pc) and all you will need is a 100mb thumb drive or CF card (with reader) to load it on. I have two upstairs (1 was my old PC and the other is my sisters that she was going to throw out) right where my router (hardlined in to the router) is and I have 3 xbmc terminal PCs around the house which access the data. cost was virtually nothing and they are easily upgradable.
just have to get past the learning curve of setting up the system (there are lots of videos on youtube and you can check out their forums).
Also as seand pointed out to stream any kind of HD content you will not want to go wireless but for SD context it should be fine on wireless G.
just an idea if you dont want to spend too much on a prebuilt nas box.
