My new network is unstoppable
My internal network — connecting together 6 machines, a JetDirect printer sharer, wireless, the phones, and my cable modem — used to all be wired together through two 10baseT hubs. Throughput was horrible; one or both of the hubs were broken. I’ve just replaced the two hubs with one 16-port 10/100/1000 switch, and my network is now between ten and one hundred times faster in my testing!
It’s now fast enough, for example, that the computer plugged into the TV can show films and TV programmes that are stored on another computer on the network!
You might be thinking: yeah, whatever dude, this is not exciting, of course it does that. Well, the hell with you, anyway. I think it’s exciting.
Anyway, this means that something I’ve been thinking of doing for a while leaps up my priority list. One of the 6 computers is a server: an old tower case machine with 90GB of storage in it made up of scrounged hard drives I had lying around. I use it as the server for my home backup system, and it does a good job. However, since I can now play media across the network (exciting! it is!), I could use it as the storage place for all our films and TV and music and games and whatnot. However, it’s old and a bit noisy, so it’d be nice to get rid of it. I still need whatever I replace it with to be an actual server, though, not just a NAS-style stack o’ discs, so I don’t want a Buffalo Terastation or similar — it not only needs to run the rsync server but I also plan on having it be used for BitTorrenting stuff I’d like to watch and to be always on for downloading things.
Can anyone think of a better alternative than buying a Linksys NSLU2, installing the Unslung firmware, and plugging a big USB hard drive into it? That looks like a powerful and cheap way to do it, as far as I can tell.
Year or two ago I’ve about a network HDD ( a quite simple NAS solution) with BitTorrent capabilities. However I am not sure about rsync.
If you want more I would go with a small business server -> http://www.clarkconnect.com/ or http://www.smeserver.org/ or anything else I am not aware of :)
64 minutes later
I recently got an Infrant ReadyNAS and I’ve found it to be excellent (Rsync, DAAP, UPnP AV, and of course X-RAID). The main thing it’s missing from your list, though, is the ability to torrent. Infrant are saying that the next version of the firmware (due “soon”, for very large values of “soon”) will have shell support.
The other thing to possibly look at is the incredibly neat Bubba: a mini-server, quiet and low-powered.
I’ll be interested in seeing what you go for.
65 minutes later
GaryF: the Bubba thing looks cool but it’s quite a bit more expensive, as far as I can tell; I’ll be looking at about £260 or so for a 320GB one, which is *twice* the price of an NSLU2 and a 320GB USB HDD. Shell access is half the battle; being able to install other packages is the rest of it, which is why I like the NSLU2. The Bubba runs Debian, it seems, which would be fine too, but the price does give me pause :)
95 minutes later
I have an NSLU2, using it in much the way you describe. I’m running Debian on mine which naturally gives me full shell access and the ability to install anything from the Debian repository. I have three disks connected to mine (through a USB hub - the NSLU2 has only two USB ports) which I share using iSCSI so they just appear as a local SCSI disk on the machines that use them.
It’s worth noting that the on-board Ethernet requires a proprietary microcode in order to work. If you want to avoid that, you’ll have to use a USB Ethernet adaptor.
108 minutes later
Oh yeah, you’re absolutely paying over the odds for the form of the Bubba (one reason I opted for the Infrant box… well, that and I really wanted some RAID). Just throwing another option into the mix. Depending on how eco-friendly you are, you might want to think about the power consumption of these things. I’d be willing to bet that the NSLU2 draws a higher wattage.
118 minutes later
GaryF: there’s no way that the NSLU2 draws more current than the damned ancient dusty server sitting in the corner wheezing and whirring to itself does at the moment. It must punch out more power in sound energy than anything else, not to mention keeping all the fans running. I should be fine with that :)
DJ: useful info, especially about the network firmware requirement! Hm. I shall take a look for other similar devices that don’t require proprietary firmware blobs…
2 hours later
Just this afternoon, I’ve ordered a NSLU2 with a 320GB disk… going to use it as a bittorrent client and media server (using the closed source TwonkyMedia software) so I can watch films on my XBMC enabled Xbox.
2 hours later
Also, I need to think about whether to buy actual USB HDDs or to buy a USB enclosure and then put my own drives in it. Any suggestions on that front welcomed.
2 hours later
BJC: how much did the combination cost you?
2 hours later
$380 NZD
2 hours later
So, £140. That’s on the order of what I was expecting to pay. Cool.
2 hours later
I wanted a disk that would spin down to save power. Apparently this is more likely to work with an integrated enclosure, so I went with a Western Digital My Book.
2 hours later
500GB mybook on amazon for £90
6 hours later
On the eco-friendly front,
“>you’re better off continuing to use the computer you already have, even if it draws more power. Most of the energy ever used by a computer is used in manufacturing it.
I’m currently using an old ibook with a broken screen as our home server. It runs linux and sits out-of-sight in a cupboard, so something like an NSLU2 offers no real advantages to me.
10 hours later
Paul: I’ve currently got a server doing the job, but it’s short on disc space; since I need to buy something *anyway*, I quite like the idea of having something small and networkable to do the job. I could press something from the laptop graveyard into service, but I’d have to buy the USB HDD *anyway*.
10 hours later