Question
At the rear of my Amstrad Sky+ HD box is a port labelled SATA. What is this for?
Submitted online by Alan Hirst
Our Answer
At the moment, nothing.
In the computer world, SATA stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment, and it’s an interface used for connecting to a hard drive.
Newer Sky+ HD boxes come with a SATA port, which you’d think would allow you to connect an external hard drive, either to add more space, or to let you copy recordings. Sadly not. The SATA port is disabled, and Sky’s comment on the subject is that this port is “reserved for future use”. The USB port on a Sky+ HD box is also “Reserved for Future Use”. So no joy there.
Sky may decide to support these two ports at some point in the future, but at the time of writing, both are non-functional, but may one day be enabled via an over-the-air software update.
The USB port was also marked as “For future use” – but that has recently got a use. You can now connect a WiFi dongle (instead of using the Ethernet) for Sky Anytime… so maybe they will eventually enable that SATA port too.
F.A.E.
The USB ports are active but best not try plug “n” play because it’s for DATA. You’ll need a USB BRIDGE lead and disc to set up your pc.Also the SATA is active but there’s no point trying to wack in a SATA drive and hope this works as you’ll need to connect the SATA port to a Network Drive and MAP THE NETWORK. Then when this is done you’ll see the icon for your SKY+ BOX and Network drive and you can drag and drop. Don’t try this if you DONT KNOW what your doing as you could fry your drive and network. Also you won’t be able to rip copies or play on any other player than the SKY+ BOX as they are encypted by sky. All you will do is increase your storage :-)
Bubafatz you’re talking absolute rubbish. The port is not enabled, and will not allow you to expand storage or even see your Sky box on the network.
In fact 99% of what you said made no sense.