[LUAU] Anyone use a Linksys NSLU2? USB hard disk drives are FOSS friendly?

[Jim Thompson]

Intel OEMs a box with a 400MHz 80219 Xscale controller and a SATA  
controller that will house up to 4 3.5" SATA drives.
It has 2xGigE + 2x USB 2.0 coming out of it, and .. it runs Linux,  
and supports CIFS/SMB and NFS out of the box.

http://www.intel.com/design/servers/storage/ss4000-E/

They're about $560, plus drives (see recent threads here for what 4 x  
250GB fast SATA drives will cost, and note that 750GB SATA drives are  
available,
should you really need 3TB of storage in your home.  (MythTV backend,  
anyone?)

If you have l33t embedded skills, you can develop your own distro for  
this.   There is simply no reason it couldn't be your home gateway,  
and then
with the exception that most people's broadband connections stuck for  
upload(*), it could serve to make your 'media' accessible when you're  
out
of the home/office.

Personally, I'm waiting for the linux port of ZFS to complete.   (Its  
very close: http://zfs-on-fuse.blogspot.com/, see also: http:// 
www.wizy.org/wiki/ZFS_on_FUSE)

Because you really want your SOHO/SMB NAS, full of cheap disks, to be  
able to do all you find here:  http://www.opensolaris.org/os/ 
community/zfs/whatis/

With the right web gui, (so your average prosumer doesn't have to  
deal with the ZFS cli), this combination would make a killer home/SMB  
NAS.  Add a service component to keep a copy of the snapshots on the  
big-server-in-the-sky, and you've got something that should sell.

Jim

(*) if you're in the Honolulu core, you can get 9.2Mbps, fully- 
symmetric service for a bit under $1k/month.

On Dec 26, 2006, at 10:03 AM, Brian Chee wrote:

> The NLSU2 is a totally hackable box and is pretty nice....just keep  
> firmly
> in mind that it's USB so slow. The Netgear SC101 is totally windoze  
> ONLY
> since it's a hacked up Zetera HBA driver and while a cool concept, it
> keeps dropping off the network on me.
>
> Also, the Linksys NLSU2 (aka the Network SLUG) has a huge embedded fan
> base with some folks using them as cheaper embedded web servers, USB
> servers, etc...
>
> You might want to get instead go for some of the newer boxes that  
> are NFS
> mountable (also SMB) and web managed, AND are SATA based for speed.  
> So far
> nothing is catching my eye, and I'm considering just building an  
> embedded
> Linux box for NFS, and perhaps some other stuff...the platform that's
> catching my eye for now is the Medallion by Techsol.ca that I used  
> for the
> PODS project....general purpose StrongARM SA1110 system...that uses  
> VERY
> little power so perhaps with 2.5" drives I could make it all battery
> powered. The only hassle is that toolchain and cross compiling can  
> be a
> royal hassle if you don't do it all the time.
>
> /brian chee
>
>
> University of Hawaii at Manoa
> School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST)
> Advanced Network Computing Laboratory (ANCL)
> 2525 Correa Road, HIG 500
> Honolulu, HI  96822
> Voice: 808-956-5797       Email: chee at hawaii.edu
> Brian J.S. Chee, CNE/CNI
> http://ancl.ics.hawaii.edu
>
> On Mon, 25 Dec 2006, Julian Yap wrote:
>
>> Things are starting to get unwieldy and the amount of HD storage
>> required for files which can be offloaded (namely music, photos) has
>> increased to the point where I need to consider other storage  
>> options.
>> Basically I want a cheap NAS (and that cheap to run, so not a PC).
>>
>> Anyone use a Linksys NSLU2?  Any good?
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2
>>
>> Recommend any of the alternative firmwares on this site over any  
>> of the
>> others?
>> http://www.nslu2-linux.org/
>>
>> I'm thinking of getting one of these and a 'Sunday paper brochure
>> insert' USB hard disk drive.
>>
>> Another question is, do USB hard disk drives require any Windows/Mac
>> software to be operational?  In other words, are they all pretty much
>> Free Software OS friendly?
>>
>> ~ Julian
>>
>>
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