Yes, our timing is impeccable. Just as Apple announced the new, streaming-only AppleTV, we put the finishing touches our our first generation AppleTV with 1 TB of external storage.
We’ve been upgrading AppleTVs to 320 GB of storage space for quite a while, but we’ve never gone beyond that, since no compatible internal drive has been released larger than 320 GB. But there was enough demand for more storage space that we developed our AppleTVs with external storage, using our single-drive external cases.
Beyond getting more space by going external, this also keeps the temperature of the AppleTV way, way down.
So why would you want the older AppleTV? The big difference is whether you want your storage local, and thus more dependable, or streaming, and therefore reliant on either a fast internet connection or a server elsewhere on your network.
If you want to just dedicate storage to the AppleTV, and make sure it’s always there when ready, this is the unit for you. We hear from customers in many situations who prefer the local storage approach for these reasons:
- The main computer in the house is a laptop, so if the laptop isn’t there and storage isn’t local, the AppleTV has nothing to stream.
- The AppleTV is in a business like a doctor’s office, so it can play songs endlessly with local storage, and doesn’t use internet bandwidth.
- Many use an AppleTV to store digital camera images for use in a home theater.
So what’s the drawback to the original AppleTV? So far, it’s that it doesn’t stream Netflix. And, since the new AppleTV is based on the iOS platform used by the iPhone/iPod/iPad, Apple is likely to develop more features for it down the road. But if you’re looking for a great way to store music, photos, and video right at a unit in your living room, with a great Apple interface, the original AppleTV with 1 TB of storage is the perfect product.
And, if you already have an AppleTV, we can upgrade it!