Using an external hard disk on Apple TV 3rd gen

Tech Support
21

iCloud Drive supports selective sync, so not everything has to be on the SSD.

1 Like
22

I really donā€™t know. All my storage intensive stuff is stored on my synology. I donā€™t think ā€œthe cloudā€ (any cloud) is ready for that yet.

In fact I trust any cloud solution as far as I can throw themā€¦ which is about 0 centimeters
So I have all my data locally, and backed up off site, and only keep a tirtiary copyin the cloud.

1 Like
23

So, Iā€™m contemplating getting a NAS to solve this problem. As mentioned, Iā€™m going iOS only soon, but I have about 1TB of movies and tv shows that I still would like access to.

But I canā€™t use an USB to connect with my iPad Pro and watch movies through that. So probably a NAS would be the best way.

Can anyone recommend a NAS which is specifically tailored to use with an iPad Pro and an Apple TV?

24

Iā€™ve been using a QNAP TS-251 since 2015 (cost: about ā‚¬210 for the NAS itself + 2x4TB drives at about ā‚¬130 apiece).

It serves as my file store, my TimeMachine backup and my Plex server (for films and TV series as well as downloaded YouTube and Vimeo tutorials). You can fill it with high capacity hard drives to the amount you deem sufficient to cover your needs.

It is more than adequate for the job and does not have to be specifically tailored for the job of serving up content to an iPad or AppleTV.

For viewing video content offline on an iOS device, I use Infuse 4 to download from the NAS (you can use Plex directly if you only want to stream.) Infuse is now at version 6 and has become a lot more expensive for a pro licence but may still be worth it to you (I canā€™t remember if the free version allows you to download video to your device).

For viewing through an Apple TV, install Plex on an ATV4 or ATV4K and link it up with the NAS. For earlier ATVs, I suggest using Airplay from an iOS device, via Plex or Infuse (works beautifully).

For other content, I either use the QNAP file manager (rather clunky), or any one of a number of file management apps in which I have set up the NAS as a source (GoodReader, which is my eternal favourite, Readdleā€™s Documents, etc. ā€¦).

I hope this information is useful to you.

1 Like
25

Will iPadOS solves this problem?

Will I be able to play movie files from an external USB hard drive on my iPad Pro?