Temporarily connect an additional hard drive to VB Essential

[kitecarl]

After years of enjoying Vortexbox on a sub par home built server that finally bit the dust, tonight I've ordered a Vortexbox Essential that I'm looking forward to receiving! I want to now connect my hard drive from my old server temporarily to the appliance to copy my pre-ripped music, videos, photos, etc to the new device. Can anyone tell me if I pop open the VBA is there an extra SATA cable available for use, or would I have to go via say an externally mounted USB drive connection? I would prefer the former so I wouldn't have to spend any money getting a USB solution. I should be able to take the SATA cable out of my current computer assuming there's spare connection on the VBA motherboard. Thanks for the help!

(Super excited to see Plex is an installable option on the new version too - I'm numerous Vortexbox versions behind at this point so it'll be great to catch back up. Plex is a perfect solution for streaming local video to my Rokubox.)

[fatherwu]

I don't have an answer for you about the hardware but I did have to copy stuff over via USB drive after I upgraded. There is a thread on here that tells you how to mount the drive via usb and to use rsync instead of cp since you can restart if something happens during the copy. You could also copy over from a windows machine via the network if needed.

http://vortexbox.org/archive/index.php/t-3276.html

[jimmight]

I have installed VB1.10 with only 192KB (256 - 64 shared video), but I recall VB2.0 needs at least 768KB (which is a wooping 4 times more!). As I did not upgrade while the Fedora 14 repository was still online, that option won't work anymore. Any ideas?

[fatherwu]

I have installed VB1.10 with only 192KB (256 - 64 shared video), but I recall VB2.0 needs at least 768KB (which is a wooping 4 times more!). As I did not upgrade while the Fedora 14 repository was still online, that option won't work anymore. Any ideas?

You do mean 192MB right?

[chabelo]

After years of enjoying Vortexbox on a sub par home built server that finally bit the dust, tonight I've ordered a Vortexbox Essential that I'm looking forward to receiving! I want to now connect my hard drive from my old server temporarily to the appliance to copy my pre-ripped music, videos, photos, etc to the new device. Can anyone tell me if I pop open the VBA is there an extra SATA cable available for use, or would I have to go via say an externally mounted USB drive connection? I would prefer the former so I wouldn't have to spend any money getting a USB solution. I should be able to take the SATA cable out of my current computer assuming there's spare connection on the VBA motherboard. Thanks for the help!

(Super excited to see Plex is an installable option on the new version too - I'm numerous Vortexbox versions behind at this point so it'll be great to catch back up. Plex is a perfect solution for streaming local video to my Rokubox.)

The VB Appliance doesn't have an extra slot or set of cables. The two SATA connections are used by the DVD/CD and the internal HD. I modded mine by
removing the DVD/CD, placing it in an external enclosure, and putting an extra HD (with the appropriate bracket) inside in it's place.

I would strongly recommend just getting one of these from Amazon:

http://amzn.to/O2TfnY

Just hook your drive up via USB, mount it, and copy your music/data off of it. The connector is cheap, it's handy to have around anyway, and the time you save vs opening your case and fiddling around is worth something. But that's just my two cents.

[andrew]

Sure just disconnect the DVD drive and use that cable. You don't need it while your moving your files over.