Kodi Community Forum

I want to store films on an external hard drive and play them from the ATV2. My wireless is sometimes dodgy so I'd prefer to connect it by wire but the router is in another room.

Can I connect it directly to the ATV2 by ethernet?

Do I need a switch?

If I can do either of the above can I put content on the hard drive from my laptop over wifi or will I need to get a second router to wire the hard drive and ATV2 and connect to wifi to make the hard drive accessible?

Thanks

If your router has a USB port then go HDD -> via USB -> Router -> via Ethernet -> ATV 2

Or if your HDD is a NAS and has an ethernet port you could just go straight form NAS to the ATV2

The ATV2 can only use wireless or wired not both at the same time.
You can not attach a usb device to it.
Use a wired connection to the atv2 if you want greater reliability and speed.
Your router should have a switch built into it.
Do not put two routers on your network.

Just to make it simple, if you have a NAS drive, (like WD MyBook or QNAP) then attach that directly to the modem/router. You can access that disk wireless from your ATV (but as g-off said: you better get on board with a wired connection).

You have a USB drive, my first suggestion would be buy a NAS drive (usb drives are nothing but a pain) but if that's not an option for you and most importantly, if your router supports it, attach it to the USB port on the back of the modem/router; then rest of the procedure should the same as above. Hope, it helps. Cheers!!