Apple TV gets the SSD treatment
Well, it had to happen eventually: someone cracked open their Apple TV and transplanted the 2.5-inch drive with a 32GB SSD by Transcend. That's pretty much it -- just a bit of hacking, partitioning, re-imaging, and off you go. Do you really even have to ask if putting an SSD in something was worth it?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Galley @ Jun 14th 2008 8:36AM
I would like to see Apple come out with a 32GB Apple TV for the car. If it were flash-based, it could be much smaller. Someone suggested a 32GB iPod touch, but the beauty of the Apple TV is that it would automatically synch when I pull into my driveway. Not being hard drive-based would be best in a hot (and bumpy) environment like a car.
DrXym @ Jun 14th 2008 9:32AM
This is so pointless. Movies and music aren't going to play faster for swapping out the HDD, so why bother? SSDs are barely faster than HDDs either for reading / writing so its not like you even benefit from faster copying either.
Shawn Parr @ Jun 14th 2008 12:17PM
While I agree that this is not something I would find personally rewarding or financially responsible there are some good reasons to do it.
The real world advantages of SSD are heat and noise. Noise is especially a concern in the Apple TV. While out of the box I'm sure Apple has kept it pretty darn quiet, most drives as they age produce more noise.
As an example the drive noise on my DirecTV HR21 is enough to be heard from our TV watching position easily. Its fan is as well. In the future the use of SSD could allow for a fanless design, or at least a design that requires the fan to run a lot less often. That plus no HD noise (which is really what bugs us) would be great.
DrXym @ Jun 14th 2008 2:09PM
SDDs can get pretty hot too. As for noise, I wouldn't even know my PS3 is reading from the HDD unless a little light flashed to tell me. Maybe the Apple TV is different but I doubt it. Sound would be so minute that you wouldn't hear it sitting across the room.
why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 14th 2008 6:16PM
A 3.5" HDD takes about 12-15W. Your DirecTV HR21 (or at least my HR20) takes about 50-60W. Changing the HDD out for solid stage storage will only reduce the heat by perhaps 25%, which doesn't necessarily mean it can go fanless.