We got our new Apple TV today, skipped the 'plug it in' step, and went straight to our disassembly. It's Apple model #A1218.

The packaging has been reviewed to death other places, so we're going to skip that.

Peel up the rubber base (remove the rubber carefully so you don't tear it) and remove the four T8 Torx screws beneath:

• Two 10 mm T8 Torx by the ports.
• Two 15 mm T8 Torx near the front.

Lift off the metal base, revealing the hard drive.

Disconnect the ATA hard drive cable from the right side of the logic board. Try to pull straight up so you don't bend the pins on the hard drive.

The hard drive is mounted on the baseplate of the unit. It is a 40 GB 2.5" Fujitsu ATA drive (NOT an SATA drive). You can replace this drive with a standard ATA laptop drive if you want to upgrade it.

Behold, the Apple TV. Looks like a Mac Mini sans the optical drive and all the useful ports.

Disconnect the two airport antenna cables.

Remove the T8 Torx screw in the top left corner of the airport card.

Lift the airport card up and out of the Apple TV.

This is the exact same Broadcom wireless card as the Mac Pro, down to the Apple model number (020-5280-A). Note the (now standard) two antennas. Our card came scractched from the factory. Makes you wonder what's going on over in China...

Disconnect the fan connector from the logic board.

The fan is mounted on rubber posts to dampen vibrations and make it quieter. Apple claims the Apple TV is 7-10 dB, which is extremely quiet.

Use tweezers to compress the top of a rubber post and push the post down into the hole. Repeat this for each rubber post.

Once all three posts are pushed into the fan, lift the fan up carefully. The posts should easily slide out, freeing the fan.