Tuesday, July 11 2006, 19:04
Linksys NSLU2 - the answer to your NAS requirements - and more!
By fake - Permalink
After the frustrating experiences i had with the Teac HD35-NAS (see my review), i looked around for an alternative solution. I didn't need to look around lot, until i found a product that perfectly fits me.

(it's actually smaller than a normal cd case, and about twice as thick)
The Linksys NSLU2 is a small device with very low power consumption that's ment to be used in connection with the USB drive enclosures you probably already own. But there's more - it runs Linux, and a very active community already evloved, bringing ports of common Linux Distributions like Debian to the "Slug" - as the device is called.
Read around the www.nslu2-linux.org page, and try to find someone *not* satisfied with the device - i wasn't able to. There are lots of users reporting what kind of stuff they do on the WhatPeopleAreReallyUsingTheirSlugsFor page. You also may want to de-underclock the device from 133 to 266 MHz, which is pretty easy.
I'll get a VGA USB Dongle and see if i can use this device as a very cheap thin client (it's only 79 EUR in 20% VAT austria, so it's probably even cheaper in .de). The possibilities are endless! I LOVE it!
Oh, and, yes, there is a 2-staged bootloader on there, so a failed firmware flash won't brick it, unlike the Teac HD35-NAS.
On that: i had correspondence with Dennis from www.aroundmyroom.com, who offers a customized firmware on his web-page, so he obviously has some inside knowledge. He enlightened me that the device does NOT have any rescue system for failed firmware flashes. Actually, i googled a lot more, and found out the device is based around a chip from RDC, the RDC2882, and has many rebranders: Hotway HD9-U2LA, Usbex LanDrive, FANTEC LD-H35NU2-2, FANTEC LD-M35NU2 -2, Macpower Pleiades USB/LAN, Mapower KC31N (which also looks *exactly* the same despite the logo. they have an extensive FAQ (german only, sorry!), also covering the hidden reset jumper and how to use it). I found all these via 2 very long forum threads here and here. I'll use the device as USB client for the Slug now ;)
one comment
I found when using the usbex LanDrive got problems...
1. If you have long filenames, cannot copy to the lan drive
2. The mod date is set to be the same as the create date. This results in a conflict when I use a back up program that 'synchronizes" based on mod dates.
Anyone encountered the same problems?