A great device for remotely storing all your FileZ. I would recommend the thermite upgrade with remote activation capabilities so that the unit is vaporized in case of a raid by the RIAA or MPAA.

speaking of raid... could you put the drives in RAID?

dude where was this when i needed it, my pirating days are over and the WAREZ are no longer.

No gigabit ethernet connection.

#2 - yes.

Not particularly great reviews for this product.
I just researched and went for a DLink DNS-323.
I really wanted a Synology NAS but couldn't justify the money.
Now I hope the DLink works out.
I know you are all anxious to hear how my purchase works out so I'll be sure to keep you informed.

i wanted a drobo, but don't have the budget. got a simplshare 500gb a while back when ben posted it only to find out it didn't do raid (they only support raid on the 250gb version). If this deal was around back then, I would have gotten this. Gigabit ethernet? For 80$ what do you want? Blood?

As I see it, a big issue with NAS devices is the file system used on the disk. NTFS and Ext are relatively robust, errors can be "fixed" by moving the disk to XP or Linux/Unix, and the disk can also be thus moved if the NAS should go down.

On the other hand, a FAT system is relatively fragile and some NAS use file systems for which there are no drivers and/or the drivers are read only for XP/*IX, or the reverse (g the NAS can read but not write XP.

Most of the comments in these posts don't even mention those issues. In committing data to such a box, it is important to have some assurances it is both secure and recoverable in he event of some failure (other than the disk itself dying).

Comments and/or recommendations/insights sought, and thanks in advance.

i just recently got a new nslu2 off craigslist for $20. kinda slow but works great. can serve videos and they play just fine. running two 500gb drives, one backs up the other.

Some people were just offering this up in engadget's best NAS article today... I'd rather roll my own but at $80 it's tempting.

"one button backup"? ... what or which station does it backup?

This has bottom-of-the-barrel performance. Bad enough that you'd have a hard time streaming a DVD ISO at playable speeds.
Here's a great NAS comparison:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190/
I went for a D-Link DNS-321. It's buggy; I'd choose the DNS-323 if I had to do it again - it's been around longer and is not so buggy.
Couple things about the D-Link:
-Samba only (no NFS).
- DOES support jumbo frames now, as of the firmware (1.1) they released about a week ago

I built my own. But network storage like thisworks great.

why not dig out that old p2/p3 and drop a gigabit nic in it. Then you can drop however many drives it can handle (4 with the onboard and more if you get and ide pci card).

#13 that old PC uses more power than this, and if you run a crap OS like Windows who knows when it'll go down. If you run Linux, you're doing the same thing as these NAS boxes (which almost all run Linux).

I'd like to know what the jumbo frame support in the new DNS-321 firmware really does. Enabling actually slows down xfers, yes on a Gb switch supporting jumbo and a PC GbE NIC which does too

Pretty good deal. I bought this when it was $100. Only gripe about this is its kinda slow bc it doesn't have gigabit transfer. But if you want to just store files with this and in no hurry, its great.

i have this and put two 500gb seagates in it. it's rock solid but not the fastest. however, it's faster then my cable internet connection.

Get a Drobo. Done and done.

#13 and #14, how about getting one of these teeny new shuttle itx boxes. Low power use, a decent processor, gigabit, and you can put in whatever variant of linux you want (freenas?).

It's funny that looking for the power spec's on the Linksys site for this unit, all they list is the transformer output (nothing on AC power consumption). So, did some quick calc's and I come up with this: wall wart @ 12vDC @5amps (output) = the stepdown (AC>DC) transformer voltage loss + the transformer (AC amps > DC amps in heat) conversion loss + reactive load when on = about 125w of power (max) to run. A small system with a 150w P/S should cost slightly more to run than this unit, and you can configure it any way, with as many features (Nic's,HD's)as you need. Plus, you can set it up to use sleep mode to save more, and wake when called upon. Easily repairable also.

If it comes with a 12.V @ 5.A adapter, that is 60.W output power (max). Assuming 80% efficiency (which is reasonable for a switching power brick), that would be 75.W input power, though I doubt it runs at max, so the actual (input) power draw with a pair of drives is likely in the 50-60.W range.

My desktop has a 60.W input power with a high efficiency power supply (80 plus), but only a single hard drive, but I could remove the add-on video card and use the onboard and remove the TV card to get the power down a little, then add another drive, and it would probably still be in the vicinity of 60.W, which is probably close to what this draws. So when I build my next PC, this old one would be a good candidate for becoming a NAS.

- Eric, http://www.bacon.com/