# Apple TV: 40 or 160 gb?



## Snubnose (Sep 28, 2003)

Hey gang,

After MUCH deliberation, I've decided to go with an Apple TV over the Mini (too pricey), PS3 (don't play games), or Windoze PC (headaches).

Now I'm wondering- should I stump up for the 160 gb model? Or get the 40 gb one, and use the "hack" to attach an external drive? I just cannot get a feeling for how difficult these various hacks are for regular people. Any advice here would be appreciated.

Snubnose


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## da_jonesy (Jun 26, 2003)

Snubnose said:


> Hey gang,
> 
> After MUCH deliberation, I've decided to go with an Apple TV over the Mini (too pricey), PS3 (don't play games), or Windoze PC (headaches).
> 
> ...


I went with the 40 and "upgraded" it to 250GB... I love my AppleTV.


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## Snubnose (Sep 28, 2003)

da_jonesy said:


> I went with the 40 and "upgraded" it to 250GB... I love my AppleTV.


Really? How hard was it to configure that?


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## psxp (May 23, 2006)

Future shop are now selling the ArchosTV at a compariable price. I have a 605 with dock and it rocks. I should see how good its for streaming as I have never bothered. 
I used to use connect360 and go from Mac-->XBOX360 but that suddenly stopped working..


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## da_jonesy (Jun 26, 2003)

Snubnose said:


> Really? How hard was it to configure that?


There are plenty of resources on the web to describe how to do it.

How-to: Upgrade the drive in your Apple TV - Engadget

The largest drive you can get is a WD 250GB

Canada Computers - Hard Drives > Notebook Drives > 2.5" IDE Drives : Western Digital Scorpio (WD2500BEVE) 250GB PATA 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" Laptop Hard Disk (OEM).


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## ruffdeezy (Mar 17, 2008)

I only went with the 40gb. Why? That's all you need. Stream everything from your computer. It works seamlessly. Why bother wasting hours syncing everything onto the apple tv when it wont do anything extra for you. Save 100 bucks and just stream.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

I find 40 GB plenty. It's like having a 40GB iPod. Unless you for some reason want to have EVERYTHING you own on your AppleTV, streaming and even syncing is pretty easy.


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

I don't remember what mine is.  lol


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## atvpatch (May 12, 2008)

da_jonesy said:


> There are plenty of resources on the web to describe how to do it.
> 
> How-to: Upgrade the drive in your Apple TV - Engadget
> 
> ...


A more convenient method is to enable the USB port and jsut plug in any external HD


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## ZRXer (Jan 18, 2007)

ruffdeezy said:


> I only went with the 40gb. Why? That's all you need. Stream everything from your computer. It works seamlessly. Why bother wasting hours syncing everything onto the apple tv when it wont do anything extra for you. Save 100 bucks and just stream.


I agree with ruffdeezy. I had a bunch of movies on there and was slowly running out of room as we also have a lot of our iPhoto albums on there and some music. Eventually I figured out that streaming is essentially flawless and "seamless" as he said - I have only our kids' Disney movies on the AppleTV HD and everything else streams - we have about 40 movies on our iMac that we can choose from anytime - streaming takes about 2 seconds to start and from there, you'll never notice a difference - and on top of that, syncing movies over to the Apple TV HD is painfully slow over wifi. I wouldn't spend the extra money for the bigger drive.


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## jeepguy (Apr 4, 2008)

atvpatch said:


> A more convenient method is to enable the USB port and jsut plug in any external HD


I tried this, but I didn't like having the extra cables and drive sitting there. Buy the 40, and stream.


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## wcg (Oct 13, 2007)

I bought the 160GB model on the refurb store (which I recommend). After using it for awhile I recommend getting the 40GB model. Streaming works great and you really don't need the local storage. If you do, you can set it up to sync the last N unwatched movies, shows, etc. Everything else, I get off the Internet or stream off my Mac.

I did get a US iTunes account as well which I've used a few times to rent movies which are decent value IMO.

Here's my box opening pictures from an Apple TV bought at the refurb online store - as you can see it's identical to retail.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

I keep a lot of YouTube videos and podcasts on the TV and take it to school for my students. Also great for cueing up movies or short educational vids. 40GB is plenty for me.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

I wish Sig Electronics had those cheap Apple TVs once again.


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