[clue-tech] Interesting file server appliance

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 01-30 10:29, Peter Kuykendall wrote:
> [I posted this a while back, but I believe that the server was down at 
> the time.  I apologize if this was sent out twice - Pete]
> 
> 
> Now this looks pretty cool.  It's an external hard drive that goes 
> beyond the usual USB interface.  This one has an Ethernet interface as 
> well.
> 
> If you think about it, it's really a file server appliance.  No doubt 
> it's running GNU / Linux with NFS, Samba, etc. so that it can talk to 
> Windows and Linux boxes on the network.  And the administration 
> interface is a web page, so it's doubtless running Apache in there as well.
> 
> I wonder what the embedded computer looks like (chipset, RAM, etc)?   
> Does anybody have any hard info about the guts of this thing?  I'd love 
> to know.
> 
> $100 for 250 gigs.  
> http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=203354227&adid=17654&dcaid=17654

While I can't speak for this specific product, I do have a Maxtor NAS which
is very similar to this model, but has 500G. I did a bit of wrestling to get
the rights correct (and it's still not 100% the way I want it) - I had to
use CIFS instead of SMBFS for one. I posted a bit about it on my blog, and
someone else suggested that I get NFS going as that's less frustrating in
the rights department than getting the rights and CIFS to work properly.

According to others, it runs Samba internally: 
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=188027

The guy who posted on my blog did this writeup about NFS on Western Digital:
http://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2007/01/13/using-western-digital-netcenter-with-ubuntu-linux/

...so it's not a direct answer about the exact hardware you are talking
about, but it seems that both WD and Maxtor are probably running Linux/BSD
under the hood...

I remember telling one of the guys at one of the local shops around here
that I thought NAS was going to become a commodity item - he argued
vehemently with me...and that was just a few months ago! Even if he's
talking RAID 5, I doubt that it's that unreasonable. As far as just network
attached storage, it already IS a commodity item if I can waltz into Best
Buy and pick one up - and I'm almost sure I've seen a 1TB one there. 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net  
http://sean-leblanc.blogspot.com/
As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share 
the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived. 
-Oliver Wendell Holmes