NAS or external HDD box?

[Ruggerbugger]

I've been looking at the Freecom external drives on Scan (although the 80 and 160GB are out of stock). I like the way they would seem to fit easily into my newly established wireless network, but I've been wondering whether I could use a spare drive and an external caddy instead. I have a 40GB WD drive that's in my desktop at the moment, although I'm not currently storing anything on it.

I want a drive that is accessible both on the local network at home and via VPN (or similar) remotely. Which setup is the best for this type of job?

[Trippledence]

If you have a dedicated box with HDD;s in then you can run other services on it, like a Web server, or firewall.

[peterb]

Try this http://www1.linksys.com/products/pro...id=640&scid=43 from here http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...717338-9616428 Brilliant bit of kit - you do need an external hard drive with it though. If you are feeling adventourous when you have it up and running try this www.nslu2-linux.org - but you don't have to - it works brilliantly on its own.

[Splash]

Try this http://www1.linksys.com/products/pro...id=640&scid=43 from here http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...717338-9616428 Brilliant bit of kit - you do need an external hard drive with it though. If you are feeling adventourous when you have it up and running try this www.nslu2-linux.org - but you don't have to - it works brilliantly on its own.

Just a comment on the above really - by all means go with the NSLU2, but don't expect stellar performance. I and a lot of other people seem to have had issues with it being hella slow, and occasionally (for no reason that I can see) dropping off the network.

Personally I have an old Duron 700 machine with 128mb RAM running Naslite + - granted it ain't free, and it doesn't really do anything that someone with the knowhow couldn't do with A N Other linux distro, but it really does the biz and it's a breeze to setup.

[peterb]

Just a comment on the above really - by all means go with the NSLU2, but don't expect stellar performance.

Splash,

Have you done the hardware mod to double the processor speed? If not, it is worth doing.

[Splash]

tbh I wasn't aware of one - A lot of people on my local LUG had also been playing with NSLU2-Linux and echoed my sentiments. I didn't have mine long enough to really start hardware modding, but wasn't impressed out of the box. As I say, Naslite plus serves my needs perfectly.

[peterb]

The processor of an NSLU2 out of the box runs at half the rated speed. Removing a resistor on the PCB restores the processor to normal speed. It isn't known why Linksys chose to use this (undocumented in the processor spec) feature - possibly to do with timing issues, but reports from the NSLU2-linux website show that many have been modded without any ill effects.