UK retailer Cloudsto sells Android mini-computers and TV sticks. They’re little devices that you can plug into a TV or monitor to run Android apps on a big screen.
Most of these little boxes feature processors, memory, and a small amount of storage. But the Cloudsto Media PC Pro DriveDock can handle a large amount of storage — you can plug in a laptop hard drive to add up to 2 terabytes of storage.
The Media PC Pro DriveDock features an Allwinner A20 dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of built-in flash storage. It runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and has a VGA and HDMI output, allowing you to surf the web, watch videos, play games, or run other Android apps on your TV.
It features 4 USB ports which you can use to plug in a keyboard, mouse, game controller, or hard drive. But there’s also a microSD card slot for extra storage and a SATA interface which can handle a 2.5 inch laptop hard drive.
In other words, you can load up a HDD with hundreds of hours of music, movies, photos, or other content, stick it in the dock and access all of that content on your TV.
You can connect the DriveDock to the internet using built-in WiFi or the included Ethernet jack.
Cloudsto is selling the Media PC Pro DriveDock for £95 and expects to ship the device in mid-March.
Interestingly, the docking bay for the hard drive is on top of the mini-computer, leaving the hard drive exposed to the elements rather than tucked away inside the case. Theoretically this makes it easier to remove the hard drive if you want to hook it up to a PC to copy files, but it also means it’s more likely to get bumped or damaged in some other way.
Why was this left out of the last article on Cloudsto’s products? Someone mentioned it in the comments on that page so thanks to that commenter too, looks like a great HTPC. On CNX-Software’s website theyre talking about getting Linux onto it. We can only hope though theres already been a leek of the saucy code.
These are intended for the Asian market. Over there you can apparently find street vendors all about the place selling 2.5″ hard drives filled with bootleg content. They plug em in like tapes or carts. Because it is all on the down low there probably won’t ever be a standard housing so bare drives it is.
Do these type units support SSD?
Should work with anything featuring the appropriate SATA interface.
This seems like a good idea till you think about it, Why not just use USB 3.0 instead. Then you would stlll be able to copy data to it easy. I don’t think I would want my expensive HDD just sitting out in the open like that, ready to be dropped or have a ESD discharge on the motherboard from handling. Add fast wifi (think 5ghz AC or N) and a gigabyte ethernet and then hooking up a HDD seems a bit old school.
Who says you have to use an expensive drive? I have a 250GB SATA drive left over from upgrading my laptop to SSD, it’d be perfect for this.