|
Linksys by Cisco NSLU2 Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives
|
| Price: |
Average customer review:
Product Description
NETWORK STORAGE LINK F/ 2* USB 2.0 DISK DRIVES UK
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #37840 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Linksys
- Model: NSLU2-UK
- Released on: 2004-08-31
- Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .34 pounds
Features
- Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk D
- Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives
Editorial Reviews
Manufacturer's Description
Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives Easily Add Storage Space to Your Network
Now you can quickly and easily add gigabytes of storage space onto your network with the Network Storage Link from Linksys. This tiny network appliance connects USB 2.0 hard drives directly to your Ethernet network.
Installation of the Network Storage Link is simple -- just plug it directly into your 10/100 Ethernet network, and attach your USB 2.0 hard drives or flash disk. It can self-configure to your network via DHCP or you can use the built-in utility to manually configure it. With the speedy USB 2.0 interface, you'll get quick response times with even your largest files.
The Network Storage Link features built-in disk utilities, accessible through your web browser. You can format new disk drives, and scan drives for errors. The built-in backup program lets you schedule full, incremental, or synchronization backups of your network drives to the Network Storage Link, or vice versa. It will even send you an email message when a hard drive gets nearly full, completely full, or has an error.
The Network Storage Link is a fast, simple, flexible and economical way to add storage to your network
Box Contents
Customer Reviews
Don't be scared!
This product has received mixed reviews, and to be fair there is a good reason for this - most people don't get what it does as it's a fairly unique product.
The NSLU2, or Slug as is is often referred to, enables you to cheaply turn an external USB drive into a NAS. BUT ... it is intended to be of use to those who have a spare drive which is surplus to requirement, probably because you've just bought a bigger drive to backup your stuff. If you only have 1 external drive which you are currently using for backups this device probably isn't for you - buy a NAS with a built-in HD. It is now possible to connect an external NTFS or FAT32 drive so you can move it between the Slug and your PC, but that's generally not the reason most people want a NAS. NAS devices are best when they are setup and left to run as stand-alone devices on your network.
If you are ready to accept the fact your external HD will become your NAS and won't be used for anything else, then you are now in business and what you can do with the Slug is quite impressive for such a cheap device. With a little bit of 'tinkering' and not much in the way of Linux knowledge you can easily expand beyond the standard NAS file sharing functionality, and add things like a print server, media server and so on.
I have mine running twonkyvision media server to stream my itunes collection (mp3) to a wireless music player, sharing out my printer so I can print from my laptop without having my PC switched on (handy if you travel with your job and need to print a map for where you need to be the next day), and sharing files. I could use it as a web server, a mail server and countless other types of server if I wanted, but it configured the way I want it and it was a doddle to do.
In operation the Slug and HD are silent (unless you have your ear right next to the HD) and consume a fraction of the power my PC does - perfect for leaving on all the time.
Some people have commented on the backup feature of this device and how it's no good for backing up their PC. My approach is rather than using the Slug to backup your PC, backup from the PC onto one of the network shares created by the Slug. My MP3's, photo's and other important stuff is all on the Slug, but these are copied from my PC using SyncToy. SyncToy is one of the XP Power Tools available from Microsoft and is free. You can schedule this, but it's not as good as something like Memeo. For Full-System backup (i.e. the kind you can do a bare-metal recovery from) the best option is to use a second HD attached to the PC (internal or external) and use Acronis True Image. Acronis enables you to boot from a rescue CD and restore the image.
Different tools for different things, but NAS devices aren't designed for high throughput - they are designed to serve files. The Slug is good in this respect, but certainly isn't the fastest consumer NAS on the market, but it is cheap and very flexible.
Unbeatable device for the money!
Having cased up a spare IDE drive for a princely sum, I was looking for something to attach it to, something that would give me always-on access from anywhere on my LAN and I came across this little beauty.
On opening the box, the first impression I had was how truly tiny and cute this thing is - it's completely dwarfed by my router and cable modem!
It was a complete doddle to set up and get working (although at that stage the only external device I had plugged in was a memory stick), I just connected the unit to my router and ran the wizard on my PC to find and configure it. The contents of my USB pen drive were then accessible both via Windows Explorer and for extra cool factor, viewable via my browser too. Neat!
Out of the box it doesn't support NTFS (why do Linksys ship with their out-of-date firmware? This is losing them sales...), which was how my drive was already formatted and as that was stuffed with my backup data, I wasn't keen to reformat it! So I already knew I needed to upgrade to the latest official Linksys firmware (exploration of the unofficial projects, "Unslung" and "OpenSlug", I'm leaving for another day).
Well the upgrade process wasn't as smooth as it should have been - following the instructions just didn't work and I had to search online to find out that there was a little utility called EraseAll required. This turned out to have been supplied on the CD, but not documented. However that did run without a hitch and the NTFS drive works just fine (Note: I'm sure the release notes in the firmware mix up usb ports 1 and 2 when taking about NTFS support, so try connecting to the other port if it doesn't work).
I haven't tried using it as print server yet and I've only dabbled with the ftp, but both are useful features to have available.
Transfer speed seems just fast as it was from a dedicated PC server and responsiveness is actually better. The LAN is the limiting factor on speed.
The only negative things I can find to say about it are minor:
1. You need to have an ext3 formatted device attached to change some of the configuration (like the admin password, hmmm...), but I guess a spare USB pen drive would do for that.
2. It doesn't start automatically when the mains power is switched on, you have to press the on button.
3. Power saving spindown on USB disks is apparently a bit hit or miss (I don't think this is an NSLU2 specific issue) and you have to enable it on the drive itself, from a PC, using whatever utility the manufacturer might provide. So I haven't tried doing this yet.
4. Devices are not hot-swappable. No biggie, you just have to remember to power the unit down each time.
Anyway, in summary, if you want to share disk space across your LAN I thoroughly recommend this device. All the other features are icing on the cake to me, but it's a real no-brainer to buy this little server when all the alternatives are at least as expensive, less flexible and mostly devoid of all the little extras.
Great Value and also Defintely a buy for the GNU/Linux-phil
This unit is actually a very very small and cheap Linux Server with an ethernet port and two USB 2.0 ports. It's stock firmware spports sophisticated user management and backup utilities. You will need to purchase your own USB hard drives to plug into it, and currently the stock firmware will not let you attach FAT32 (i.e. Windows) formatted drives to it. The NSLU2 will need to format the drives to a Linux format (ext3) to manage sophisticated user quotas and access restrictions which FAT32 does not support. This restriction may be eased by some of the ongoing work in customising this little box since the Open Source community worked out how to improve the device.
Since the Tom's Networking article (http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article85.php) a highly active community has formed which have taken it upon itself to customise this item with additional functionality such as iTune servers, mail servers, CVS servers etc, SSH, print servers, Fat32 support, etc.
See http://www.nslu2-linux.org for the latest and greatest information on custmising the NSLU2.
A very neat little box with great potential and solid community support!
