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Amid all the hype over the iPhone, the AppleTV hasn't generated much press lately, but that doesn't mean the hackers haven't been busy. AppleTVHacks finally published a patch over the weekend that allows AppleTV users to hook up an external drive for storage.
One of the chief complaints about the AppleTV was its lack of hard drive storage, originally the AppleTv shipped with a paltry 40 GB, though Apple has since added a built-to-order option with a 160 GB drive.
Still, before the AppleTV becomes a viable option for HD movies and other large media files, it's going to need external storage options, and that's exactly what [the USB patch does][1]. There are of course some caveats, for one thing the patch only seems to work with the original software, rather than the newer Apple TV software version 1.1.
To get things working you'll need:
<ul>
<li><em>An ssh-enabled Apple TV</em>. If you don’t have that enabled yet, you can refer to this <a href="http://appletvhacks.net/2007/03/24/enable-ssh-and-afp-on-your-apple-tv/">post</a> to get it enabled. For instructions on how to enable ssh without opening the case, refer to this <a href="http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Enable_SSH_Without_Opening_the_Apple_TV">wiki page</a>.</li>
<li><em>An Intel-Mac or Intel-based *nix</em>. This is needed to run the script to patch the kernel on the Apple TV remotely. It maybe possible to run the install script under Windows using <a href="http://cygwin.com">cygwin</a>. However, we have not tried this.</li>
<li><em>An installed version of Mac OS X 10.4 Intel</em>. Or a full copy of the contents of the “/System/Library/Extensions” folder from one.</li>
<li><em>An original, unmodified copy of the ‘mach_kernel.prelink’ file from the Apple TV</em>. If the kernel on your Apple TV has not been modified yet, you can just tell the script to get it from there. Otherwise, you can obtain the file from Apple TV Software 1.1 update available <a href="http://mesu.apple.com/data/OS/061-2988.20070620.bHy75/2Z694-5248-45.dmg">here</a>.</li>
<li><em>An external USB drive formatted using “Journaled HFS+”.</em> This is the format the Apple TV expects.</li>
</ul>
For complete step-by-step instructions head over to AppleTVHacks. And if you'd like to help adapt and modify the patch to work with Apple TV software 1.1, the folks behind AppleTVHacks would [appreciate the helping hand][2].
[1]: http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/07/28/usb-patch-released-hallelujah/
[2]: http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/07/29/usb-patch-2-days-later/
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