Advice for a Multimedia External Hard Drive?

April 23, 2009 8:03 AM

Recommendations for a Multimedia External Hard Drive please? My feature wishlist is inside, thanks in advance.

I want to load up a hard drive with movies and music from my PC, connect it to my tv, then sit on my couch and control this drive with a remote control.
I don't care really if it can connect wirelessly to my pc or not, I don't mind moving it to my desktop occasionally to change content.
It needs to be not so noisy.
It needs to be not too large.
I would like it if the remote control user interface was pretty spiffy.
I would like to know if there's such a thing as solid state drive versions of this. (possibly a stupid question?)

I could only find this thread on Ask, which didnt really help at all sadly.

Many thanks in advance.

posted by kev23f to technology (11 comments total)

This is, roughly, what an AppleTV is. There are other options, but if you're willing to keep content in iTunes, it'll do all of this quite smoothly.

The advantages of solid state drives are mostly dependent on being a mobile device, which is why I don't think you'll see SSDs in devices of this type any time soon, if ever.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:29 AM on April 23

thanks Tomorrowful, i'll take a look, but i'm pretty certain i want to stay away from itunes.
posted by kev23f at 8:31 AM on April 23

I have the predecessor to the La Cie Premier, and found it a reasonably competent media player. The exact model I own is no longer sold, but I would suspect the newer models are as good or better.
posted by nomisxid at 9:04 AM on April 23

To clarify, are you looking for any multimedia playback system, or specifically one that has an integrated hard drive? There are a lot of options that involve streaming over a network from either a NAS or a computer, and some that can mount a drive via USB/firewire, and others (like AppleTV) with integrated storage. There's also the MythTV route (using a small form-factor PC as a media playback device, either from a directly connected drive or over the network). Could you please clarify which of these are acceptable/preferred?
posted by Alterscape at 9:17 AM on April 23

I use this from western digital, it's not a drive itself but I like that as it allows friends to bring their own stuf over and I can expand as I want.
posted by dstopps at 9:58 AM on April 23

Thanks alterscape. I'm specifically looking for gadgets like the lacie that was linked above. There are hundreds of similar products online, I just hoped to get some tips that singled one or two out from the crowd.

Sorry if that doesn't fully answer your question alterscape, I'm half aware of some of the neater solutions out there but something like the lacie suits my needs better right now.
posted by kev23f at 10:10 AM on April 23

Buy an Xbox and any old USB HD. It plays media just fine and is a nifty gaming machine too.
posted by Iteki at 11:19 AM on April 23

A friend of mine has just bought the WD thingy linked to by dstopps and is very impressed with it. Using this rather than an actual media drive or enclosure means you can continue to upgrade your portable HDD (or buy new ones) and simply plug them into the back of the media player.
posted by fullerine at 11:23 AM on April 23

western digital might be a winner so, thanks everyone.
posted by kev23f at 12:40 PM on April 23

I've been loving my Popcorn Hour A-110 since I got it, and dropped a 1.5TB hdd in it. Essentially a SMB/NFS/FTP file-server, with HDMI and composite out for your TV, remote control UI, BitTorrent client, support for some web content (YouTube, and the like)... It's great.

Glancing at their web-sit just now I see they've started offering a solid-state version (although obviously its capacity is rather more limited).
posted by kxr at 11:38 PM on April 23

Well, here's an update, cos, why the hell not...

I ended up getting an Iomega Screenplay Pro, and really like it. It ticks all of the boxes i was looking for:

Storage: 1tb, expandable via usb if you have any other drives floating about.

Interface: looks nice, and is responsive to the remote. Bonus is you can skin/theme the interface if you like, more info here.

Noise: It runs very quietly.

Wireless: it can connect to my home network via a wifi dongle that goes in the back.

All in all i love it; not too dumbed down, and not too awkward to set up/use/customise.

I was also tempted to get the popcorn hour linked above, which looks awesome, and i might splash out one day, but for now the iomega is perfect.
posted by kev23f at 2:22 AM on October 8