ARCTIC MC001-N ~ MultiMedia Barebone PC - €114.95 Delivered. [Amazon.de]

homewardbound11

homewardbound11 wrote: »

hi,
I am new here so please bear with me on this.

I recieved the mc001 last night installed the beta version of openelec and that seemed to load o.k. (hdd installation)
I am trying now to setup the network storage and dvb tuners but unfortunately I cant see the network. I am again new to xbmc and linux but When I look a little closer into openelec I cant see the mac address. I am now wondering if any of the network (lan or Wlan) or the tuner ias installed.
Is there any way to get a step by step guide to getting this or openelec up and running.
One last question. How do you know what type of xbmc is installed with openelec 2.0. Or should I go as others have and install xbmc frodo ontop of openelec.

Apologies if I sound not the brightest here.

Best Regards

There are step-by-step guides on the OpenElec website. And much of the initial hurdles you might run into are already mentioned and solved in this thread here.

OpenElec 2.0 is XBMC Eden (11).
OpenElec 3.0 will be Frodo (12) and you can test it now, it is in the release candidate (RC) phase which means very close to final.

There is a dedicated build of OpenElec for the MC001 coming soon so for now you should install Generic i386 Version:2.99.2 and spend the next few days getting used to it. You will be doing a clean install when the MC001 build comes out so don't waste too much time getting things set up perfectly.

homewardbound11

I Kill You Scum! wrote: »

There are step-by-step guides on the OpenElec website. And much of the initial hurdles you might run into are already mentioned and solved in this thread here.

OpenElec 2.0 is XBMC Eden (11).
OpenElec 3.0 will be Frodo (12) and you can test it now, it is in the release candidate (RC) phase which means very close to final.

There is a dedicated build of OpenElec for the MC001 coming soon so for now you should install Generic i386 Version:2.99.2 and spend the next few days getting used to it. You will be doing a clean install when the MC001 build comes out so don't waste too much time getting things set up perfectly.

Thanks " I kill you acum"

I looked at the openelec site but only found a reference guide to wiki. It didn't help with generic installation of openelec. Maybe I missed their own one. At the moment I am stuck without tvuner or network access.

Calibos

I had network access from first boot without doing anything. Have you static IP's setup for your network or DHCP??

You may or may not be stuck without tuner for longer. Thats not working in openelec yet and I don't know whether the MC001 specific build will have it working either although the prospects improved substantially when the partnership deal with Arctic was announced. ie. The openelec developers might get more help from arctic whether it be in the form of advice on how to get it working in openelec or prompt firmware updates to help get it working. Before the deal, had a developer emailed a request to arctic to make a change to something in the firmware to help them get something working in Openelec, they would probably have been answered with a polite, "Who are you, no we won't, go away". Now the answer might be, "IS tomorrow alright for you?"

homewardbound11

homewardbound11 wrote: »

Thanks " I kill you acum"

I looked at the openelec site but only found a reference guide to wiki. It didn't help with generic installation of openelec. Maybe I missed their own one. At the moment I am stuck without tvuner or network access.

Forget about the tv tuner until the dedicated build for the MC001 comes out.

Wired network works out of the box with the build I posted above. No changes necessary, network access should be there on first boot. If you see the scrolling RSS feed on the bottom you have network access.

homewardbound11

I Kill You Scum! wrote: »

Forget about the tv tuner until the dedicated build for the MC001 comes out.

Wired network works out of the box with the build I posted above. No changes necessary, network access should be there on first boot. If you see the scrolling RSS feed on the bottom you have network access.

Hi again.
I just need to confirm if yoy used the generic openelec build.
Also I am on dhcp and not fixed ip. I saw in the openelec network and network 2 there is no option for dhcp.
I am trying it on a wired network rather than wireless..

homewardbound11

homewardbound11 wrote: »

Hi again.
I just need to confirm if yoy used the generic openelec build.
Also I am on dhcp and not fixed ip. I saw in the openelec network and network 2 there is no option for dhcp.
I am trying it on a wired network rather than wireless..

The build you should be on (for now) is posted above in bold.

The network config is setup by default to use DHCP. For most people the wired LAN should work with no changes on first boot. If you've made any changes in the OpenElec network settings then reset everything to default and reboot so you can troubleshoot methodically.

After reseting everything to default and rebooting, go into system info and post what you have under the Network tab.

Allyall

I am free from 2 o'clock onwards. I can't wait to get stuck into it. I haven't had the chance all week, except one night where i forgot the RAM.
Looking at all the posts should be interesting as i go along.

I can't wait.. It's been staring at me every night i got home..

Calibos

Tried out wireless on one of my boxes today. Wasn't working......until I copped that I had typed in my Networks SSID all in caps.

Installed the VOD.ie plugin learning how to use Filezilla to sFTP into the box in the process which should come in handy for changing system files (Keymap.xml etc)

So....didn't miss the game while working in the shop today. Hooked up the box via HDMI to the National Lottery supplied 42 inch 1080p LCD screen (Which has speakers-didn't realise until I looked up the manual online to figure out which button to press to change inputs from DVI of the Lotto content server to HDMI) and watched the match on RTE2HD via Aer.tv with the VOD.ie addon.

(I've a Cat 5e run from the house to the shop with a Wireless AP on the end so our Laptops/iPads/Nexus 7's/iPhones etc can access the home network and the internet.)

From the getgo I noticed and was surprised that the Openelec splash on boot was much smoother than it looks on the house TV's at 720p and then when in XBMC proper, the Homescreen and TVshow Library screens (Transparency Skin) looked amazingly pin sharp in 1080p. Next time the TV's need replacing I'll be getting 1080p versions

As for the streamed match. Pixelated a bit with movement but was pin sharp when camera pans stopped etc. To be expected seeing as the stream is probably being encoded to H264 from DVB-T2 realtime on the aer.tv end. ie nothing to do with the MC001 as it wasn't breaking a sweat itself as its the GPU decoding H264. However still magnitudes better PQ than the mushy pixelated SD mess from the BBC stream in FilmOn that I also checked out.

Just loving the versatility of XBMC and these things....

homewardbound11

Allyall wrote: »

I am free from 2 o'clock onwards. I can't wait to get stuck into it. I haven't had the chance all week, except one night where i forgot the RAM.
Looking at all the posts should be interesting as i go along.

I can't wait.. It's been staring at me every night i got home..

thanks all for the help reinstalled opt.elev and all was fine. I am starting the process of setting up the amiko alien 2 as a client for streaming tv. Has anyone tried this.

m8

homewardbound11 wrote: »

thanks all for the help reinstalled opt.elev and all was fine. I am starting the process of setting up the amiko alien 2 as a client for streaming tv. Has anyone tried this.

No but I would very interested in the setup when you yo manage it?

quad_red

Damn you OP!

Ordered the basic one there with the remote.

Gonna get RAM off memoryc.

XBMC here I come!

ps. Just one question - will this take any normal sized blu ray drive?

Do-more

quad_red wrote: »

ps. Just one question - will this take any normal sized blu ray drive?

Nope it needs a slim blu ray drive as you would find in a laptop, scroll back a few pages and you will find some links.

subway

it takes a 12.5mm mini-sata drive.

also check reviews before you buy, i've been stung once already with an old drive that doesnt seem to play blu ray moves (wtf?)

robfowler78

Hey trying to install win 7 onto one of these for a friend, it keeps asking for DVD drivers and when we put the cd in that came with the mc001 it says drivers not found. Anyone who has installed win 7 able to help with this.

zagmund

I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of this pre-built model in the thread. I don't mind buying all the bits myself, but equally I'm quite happy enough to buy a pre-built one like this. I know it's €199 vs €115 for the bare bones version, but you get the remote, RAM, DVD & HD included. I know they don't necessarily add up to the difference of €85 but they're not far off and it saves me having to spend time on getting all the bits separately.

Apart from the fact that the ad sounds like Tesco (claims this was sold at €399 previously, yet tells us this is a new product) is there any reason someone looking at a slightly lazy way of getting the device should be wary of getting this?

They seem a bit vague on details of DLNA (which I'm still a bit vague on myself) but from what I can see this device should be usable for streaming content to either a DLNA enabled TV or other device elsewhere in the house and so the Artic can sit somewhere away from the TV - is this correct? The house will be pretty well networked, so presumably I should be able to stream to network based clients also - correct?

Cheers for any info,

z

Calibos wrote: »

Yeah Baby!!!

http://openelec.tv/news/21-partners/82-arctic-announces-passive-cooled-systems-with-openelec-installed

Now we know there is a little more behind the specific build than some sole over worked coder. Or if it is he'll now get access to firmware code or get the manufacturers to update the firmware quickly to move the project along quicker. Great News.

Someone at Arctic must have been wondering why so many were being sold by Amazon even at that great price and dug a little deeper. I'd expect the price of even the barebones to go back up very soon again.

Do-more

zagmund wrote: »

I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of this pre-built model in the thread. I don't mind buying all the bits myself, but equally I'm quite happy enough to buy a pre-built one like this. I know it's €199 vs €115 for the bare bones version, but you get the remote, RAM, DVD & HD included. I know they don't necessarily add up to the difference of €85 but they're not far off and it saves me having to spend time on getting all the bits separately.

Apart from the fact that the ad sounds like Tesco (claims this was sold at €399 previously, yet tells us this is a new product) is there any reason someone looking at a slightly lazy way of getting the device should be wary of getting this?

They seem a bit vague on details of DLNA (which I'm still a bit vague on myself) but from what I can see this device should be usable for streaming content to either a DLNA enabled TV or other device elsewhere in the house and so the Artic can sit somewhere away from the TV - is this correct? The house will be pretty well networked, so presumably I should be able to stream to network based clients also - correct?

Cheers for any info,

z

The OpenElec LE version with the TV tuner has been out of stock for a number of days now but it is available without the TV tuner for €194.

There is no reason not to go for it if that build suits you.

The reason it has probably not been discussed much is that most people on this thread had already ordered the barebones from Amazon before the OpenElec limited edition model was announced.

Having said that given the choice again I would still go with the barebones as I don't want a DVD drive and will add an SSD and Win8 in time as I already have a 4Tb NAS for storage in the meantime I have a 120Gb HDD idle so I will use that.

Still haven't got mine running yet as the various RAM I had at home didn't suit so I'm waiting on some in the post.

Remouad

Just ordered mine today.

Spotted this RAM on Amazon.co.uk.

Works out about €20 with free delivery. need something to bump up the order over £25 though. In my case that'll be another 4Gbs of RAM!

Headshot

Was really hoping the postman would be delivering mine today, no luck

I hate the waiting

jfk247

Cheers OP.....mine arrived in work this morning

just have to wait for the RAM which might arrive tomorrow fingers crossed!!!

zagmund

zagmund wrote: »

They seem a bit vague on details of DLNA (which I'm still a bit vague on myself) but from what I can see this device should be usable for streaming content to either a DLNA enabled TV or other device elsewhere in the house and so the Artic can sit somewhere away from the TV - is this correct? The house will be pretty well networked, so presumably I should be able to stream to network based clients also - correct?

Cheers for any info,

z

The Arctic is a simply a low-powered computer so what it can/cannot do depends on what OS and software you put on it.

Many people are putting OpenElec on it which is a custom Linux OS designed specifically to run XBMC (a media centre application).

If you want to know what XBMC can do then just install it on your PC and play around with it.

quad_red

Deleted User wrote: »

The Arctic is a simply a low-powered computer so what it can/cannot do depends on what OS and software you put on it.

Can it play Crysis?

subway

zagmund wrote: »

I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of this pre-built model in the thread. I don't mind buying all the bits myself, but equally I'm quite happy enough to buy a pre-built one like this. I know it's €199 vs €115 for the bare bones version, but you get the remote, RAM, DVD & HD included. I know they don't necessarily add up to the difference of €85 but they're not far off and it saves me having to spend time on getting all the bits separately.

Apart from the fact that the ad sounds like Tesco (claims this was sold at €399 previously, yet tells us this is a new product) is there any reason someone looking at a slightly lazy way of getting the device should be wary of getting this?

They seem a bit vague on details of DLNA (which I'm still a bit vague on myself) but from what I can see this device should be usable for streaming content to either a DLNA enabled TV or other device elsewhere in the house and so the Artic can sit somewhere away from the TV - is this correct? The house will be pretty well networked, so presumably I should be able to stream to network based clients also - correct?

Cheers for any info,

z

If it's xbmc it means it's a dlna reciver.
That's my experience anyway

witnessmenow

I cant purchase til i get paid again (pretty broke!)

But for anyone looking for a SSD for it, Ebuyer have a 120GB for £52, I believe its a SATA 2 so not the fastest drive in the world, but still should be plenty quick for this.

They have some 60GB ones for a few pound less

Ebuyer will not ship to Ireland anymore so you will need to use parcel motel.

Calibos

For most, certainly earlier in this thread we were buying them to run the openelec version of XBMC from a USB stick as clients under the tv to pull media content stored on a NAS device. As such we only needed to add some ram and a USB stick to the barebones MC001-N. Thus the €99 special price from Amazon was a steal despite some of the compromises of this unit. For us, the recently announced Arctic partnership deal for an introductory price of €199 would simply mean paying an extra €100 for parts we did not need. ie. HDD and DVD.

Our interest in the announcement was more about the fact that rather than waiting for a developer who happened to own one of these units get around to troubleshooting and compiling a specific build of openelec for the arctics on his own time with little help from anyone, the partnership deal meant more resources and help to fast-track a specific build with us being coincidental beneficiaries.

I'm not sure that even at the introductory price of €199 and even if you needed the HDD/DVD cause you were storing your content locally on the machine itself, that it's a great deal never mind if that price goes up. Once you get into the €200+ price range you start getting closer to the price of units with better hardware and less compromises. ie. say the price goes up to €275 after the introductory offer ends, well one might be better off spending and extra few quid for an xstreamer2 or Asrock ID80 or something like that that has a faster CPU and GPU that supports more features etc.

So don't necessarily take this thread as praising the MC001 no matter what, take it as praising it for a specific use @ €99

loopymum

Calibos wrote: »

For most, certainly earlier in this thread we were buying them to run the openelec version of XBMC from a USB stick as clients under the tv to pull media content stored on a NAS device. As such we only needed to add some ram and a USB stick to the barebones MC001-N. Thus the €99 special price from Amazon was a steal despite some of the compromises of this unit. For us, the recently announced Arctic partnership deal for an introductory price of €199 would simply mean paying an extra €100 for parts we did not need. ie. HDD and DVD.

Our interest in the announcement was more about the fact that rather than waiting for a developer who happened to own one of these units get around to troubleshooting and compiling a specific build of openelec for the arctics on his own time with little help from anyone, the partnership deal meant more resources and help to fast-track a specific build with us being coincidental beneficiaries.

I'm not sure that even at the introductory price of €199 and even if you needed the HDD/DVD cause you were storing your content locally on the machine itself, that it's a great deal never mind if that price goes up. Once you get into the €200+ price range you start getting closer to the price of units with better hardware and less compromises. ie. say the price goes up to €275 after the introductory offer ends, well one might be better off spending and extra few quid for an xstreamer2 or Asrock ID80 or something like that that has a faster CPU and GPU that supports more features etc.

So don't necessarily take this thread as praising the MC001 no matter what, take it as praising it for a specific use @ €99

Hi, has anyone got a link to the 199 model please? I can't see it on Amazon.de

robfowler78

Hey what would be the best add ons to look for with openelec just trying to get the best use out of this. Have to say its great for movies both playing and presentation wise.

zagmund

I agree - once you get over the €200 range you move away (or at least I do) from the "sure I can spend a bit on that bit of electrionics and if it doesn't work then not too much lost" range and into the realms of looking for a trade-off between price, performance, capacity, learning curve, etc . . . If it starts going over that price then I would think longer and harder about it. Anyway, Mrs Zag is getting to buy all sorts of new kitchen things during a rebuild so I feel like I should at least get some electronics to balance things out.

As it stands I have a motley selection of media on a motley selection of drives which need to be moved around the house and connected to different devices at different times and it's all a bit of a drag and not terribly organised. I reckon this might just be the device which allows me to get everything in one place for a while at least.

I had a look at the XBMC forums and it looks like it's a DLNA server as well as a receiver, although the support/compatibility seems a little sketchy. Thanks for all the info.

z

quad_red

I ordered one today. I've no problems fitting spare ram and a HDD I have.

I've done a good bit of messing with XBMC with my laptop and want it on my tv.

So my intention is to have this under the telly connected to an external drive.

I was gonna download/rip using my laptop then transfer stuff to this box over the network.

Maybe that's not such a good idea though. Should I just get a big HDD for the box?

Mmmmm

alastair_doom

loopymum wrote: »

Hi, has anyone got a link to the 199 model please? I can't see it on Amazon.de

Its from Arctic directly. Try following the link on this post:

Calibos wrote: »

Yeah Baby!!!

http://openelec.tv/news/21-partners/82-arctic-announces-passive-cooled-systems-with-openelec-installed

Now we know there is a little more behind the specific build than some sole over worked coder. Or if it is he'll now get access to firmware code or get the manufacturers to update the firmware quickly to move the project along quicker. Great News.

Someone at Arctic must have been wondering why so many were being sold by Amazon even at that great price and dug a little deeper. I'd expect the price of even the barebones to go back up very soon again.

batistuta9

Calibos wrote: »

For most, certainly earlier in this thread we were buying them to run the openelec version of XBMC from a USB stick as clients under the tv to pull media content stored on a NAS device. As such we only needed to add some ram and a USB stick to the barebones MC001-N. Thus the €99 special price from Amazon was a steal despite some of the compromises of this unit. For us, the recently announced Arctic partnership deal for an introductory price of €199 would simply mean paying an extra €100 for parts we did not need. ie. HDD and DVD.

...

So don't necessarily take this thread as praising the MC001 no matter what, take it as praising it for a specific use @ €99

I was thinking of getting the MC001-N & transfering a HDD (replacing it in a laptop with an SSD) into it that would hold all my media, as i don't have NAS, and putting XBMCbuntu on it or since reading the thread OpenELEC, i planed on using it for web streaming of football, youtube, TV players, etc. as well

Would it be the best option to go for, with what i want to do?

witnessmenow

batistuta9 wrote: »

I was thinking of getting the MC001-N & transfering a HDD (replacing it in a laptop with an SSD) into it that would hold all my media, as i don't have NAS, and putting XBMCbuntu on it or since reading the thread OpenELEC, i planed on using it for web streaming of football, youtube, TV players, etc. as well

Would it be the best option to go for, with what i want to do?

The slim line drives arent that big so the max you could put in is about 1Tb, of that is enough storage than that part of your plan would work fine.

As for streaming of football, if you are using flash streams (most of them are) I found ubuntu pretty bad for them. I would be inclined to put windows 7 on it.

I had a acer revo 3600 or something that had an atom processor and I found streaming worked better on windows than ubuntu. Worth considering anyways

robfowler78

Hey anyone been able to install windows 7 on it. Im still getting the message requesting the DVD drivers thing is there are no DVD drivers. Searched on line and there are loads of different suggestions how to fix. Anyone here got it working on this unit.

Thanks

subway

ive installed windows 7 twice,
once via usb and once via dvd - no issues

Redriddick

Hi Robbie,
I have windows seven on mine but unlike you i have no dvd drive;)
What i did was install from usb and then i had access to get all the drivers!!
You will need a different pc and an iso image of windows seven but its pretty easy to do.

robfowler78

Redriddick wrote: »

Hi Robbie,
I have windows seven on mine but unlike you i have no dvd drive;)
What i did was install from usb and then i had access to get all the drivers!!
You will need a different pc and an iso image of windows seven but its pretty easy to do.

An iso I can get but I've never installed from USB. Strange how some people have no problems but some have seems to be the same when you google the issue online.
I'll checkout the USB method would have preferred the DVD straight install less chance of something going wrong ha ha.

subway

theres probably less to go wrong with a usb install

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/a/install-windows-7-usb.htm

and download a fresh iso to be safe
http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/

robfowler78

subway wrote: »

theres probably less to go wrong with a usb install

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/a/install-windows-7-usb.htm

and download a fresh iso to be safe
http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/

Thanks I'll give it ago

Do-more

robfowler78 wrote: »

Hey anyone been able to install windows 7 on it. Im still getting the message requesting the DVD drivers thing is there are no DVD drivers. Searched on line and there are loads of different suggestions how to fix. Anyone here got it working on this unit.

Thanks

Did you try the drivers from the Arctic website?

neacy69

quad_red wrote: »

I ordered one today. I've no problems fitting spare ram and a HDD I have.

I've done a good bit of messing with XBMC with my laptop and want it on my tv.

So my intention is to have this under the telly connected to an external drive.

I was gonna download/rip using my laptop then transfer stuff to this box over the network.

Maybe that's not such a good idea though. Should I just get a big HDD for the box?

Mmmmm

Why do you not think this is a good idea? This is more or less what I was thinking of doing...

homewardbound11

Still looking to set up the vu+ addon to work with the alien 2 on spark image. No joy as of yet.

Also if anyone has put netflix on theirs just let me know please.

Thanks

Headshot

I got this one

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B005FYQKB4/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01

Im fair puzzled at having trouble installing window updates

It's really slow and you'd think something is wrong but eventually it starts to update

m8

subway wrote: »

theres probably less to go wrong with a usb install

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/a/install-windows-7-usb.htm

and download a fresh iso to be safe
http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/

I lost my windows 7 DVD can I use one of these ISO's with the key on the PC to reinstall the OS?

Do-more

m8 wrote: »

I lost my windows 7 DVD can I use one of these ISO's with the key on the PC to reinstall the OS?

Yep, as far as I could see they are authorised images from Microsft.

batistuta9

witnessmenow wrote: »

The slim line drives arent that big so the max you could put in is about 1Tb, of that is enough storage than that part of your plan would work fine.

As for streaming of football, if you are using flash streams (most of them are) I found ubuntu pretty bad for them. I would be inclined to put windows 7 on it.

I had a acer revo 3600 or something that had an atom processor and I found streaming worked better on windows than ubuntu. Worth considering anyways

yeah the HDD i have would do me for now anyway & i could always connect it to NAS or an external HDD later on if space runs out

are the streaming issues just on ubuntu or is it with anything linux based?
& does the browser matter, would using chrome make any difference?

Calibos

Anything H264, VC1, MP4, MKV etc even at 1080p will play fine as they are accelerated by the GPU using DXVA. Anything Flash,Mpeg2/4 cannot be GPU accelerated under linux on ATI/AMD GPU's (ATI GPU inside the MC001) yet until AMD sort out their linux drivers sometime this year. The dual core atom in these should handle standard def stuff decoded in software but will be stutter city for HiDef.

AFAIK.

Wait for the real experts like POG, IKILLYOUSCUM and Do-More etc to explain it much better than me.

Calibos

I'm so happy with mine, I'm thinking of ordering another 2 before they are gone!

I picked up the initial 4 for use in the Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom and Brothers flat next door (Wired to our house network). The other 2 would be for 2 more bedrooms.

Gonna replace my current 3tb of storage spread across 2 DLink DNS323 NAS' (Gave sterling service for last 5 years till now but its time to move on).

Its time I build me an UNraid server! SabNZB,Couchpotato,Headphone,MySql that baby up, get into double digit terabyte capacity and start replacing all content with HD versions, now that I have the clients capable of playing it.

quad_red

neacy69 wrote: »

Why do you not think this is a good idea? This is more or less what I was thinking of doing...

Just from what other people have said it sounds like xbmc would be sluggish in such an arrangement.

Also - would the external HDD be endlessly spinning up if it was attached to a pc that was on most of the time?

TheIrishGrover

How's it going folks. Got mine today. I've installed Win 7 for my sis on it to run XBMC (She wants browser etc otherwise I'd go Openelec) Anyway, I'm not seeing my Wireless N network. Drivers are up to date etc. Have ye seen this? (b/g works fine and other devices can see my wireless n)

Cheers folks

Scruff

quad_red wrote: »

Just from what other people have said it sounds like xbmc would be sluggish in such an arrangement.

Also - would the external HDD be endlessly spinning up if it was attached to a pc that was on most of the time?

how would be be sluggish? (I'm using this exact arrangement with an xtreamer player)

most external HDs will spin down after a certain amount of idle time. That said i did buy a 3TB segate usb 3 external hd from argos a couple of months ago and the spin down was disabled by default. I had to use a utility to enable it. Apparently there is an issue with the seagate drives that excessive wake up can cause the drive mechanism to fail. Mine are rarely on or accessed so i'm comfortable taking the risk. Bottom line, check the web for issues with external hds before you buy!

Dr Nic

Anyone know if an aldi wireless keyboard will work on this to install openelec?