Networks Linksys network storage: NSLU2 Opinions?

After successfully flashing my old WRT54G up to the latest dd-wrt I no longer need to buy a new wireless router (Which I budgeted for before attempting to flash a non-standard firmware... well, ironically a more standard than the standard, but still non-standard firmware... uhm, nevermind.).

Because I still have $80 in my tech budget, I'm thinking of grabbing a Linksys NSLU2. The goal being no longer depending on my desktop computer being turned on all the time to share files.

Plus it gives me an excuse to buy a new hard drive for the desktop and move the old one into a USB enclosure.

I will be using these drives to store all my files for the network, including graphics, photos, music, etc. (the big one is music, I plan on having my entire MP3 collection on there, mounting the fileshare on my desktop so I can manage it with iTunes remotely)

Any tips on how to do this properly?

I know the physical setup is basic: USB Drive > Linksys Network Storage Adapter > Wireless Router
But what about the conceptual setup?

Should I mount the drives, or only link to them pulling them up when I need them?
Will this device kill my USB drives, or is that up to the external USB enclosures I buy?
Has anyone here installed linux on this device? If so, was it worth it, or is it just for geek points?

 

Uhm... I'm too trigger happy and went ahead and ordered one from newegg.

So, if anyone has tips on how to use it, I am still interested, but I'd rather pretend this is a super-awesome product now that I've spent money on it. (Actually I would like to know the pros and cons, but then again I've read tons of reviews and the result was: overall good, but YMMV)

 

the guys at hak.5 http://wiki.hak5.org/wiki//index.php?title=Episode_2x03 use it as a voip asterisk box

 

I recently gave mine away as it just did not do what it said on the tin. It only supports NTFS drives through one USB port and i thought it would power my drives up when accessed and power them down after inactivity. Nope, you can only set times it powers up and down. So as i did not want to have my USB drives running all the time i had to manually switch them on every time i wanted to use them which for me defeated on of the main points of having the thing. It was easier just to have the drives attached to my desktop PC and switch it on when i needed to access them from elsewhere in the house. It was also buggy and prone to freezing up.

I gave it to a linux fiend at my work who got quite excited by it.

 

As a linux fiend myself, I figured if the device winds up disappointing me, at least I've got a very small form factor linux machine to work with.

So far it has been a great device to me, I can easily access my files from my external USB drive from any of the computers. I haven't played with any advanced features at all, but I don't really see the need since the point was just sharing files. And as a coder, most of my files are measured in KB, not in MB/GB, so other than backing up my photos and music the speed really isn't much of an issue to me.

Thanks for the feedback and warnings though! This is definitely not a true NAS system you can rely on for normal Megabit speeds, but it definitely beats plugging the USB drive directly into my laptop. (Considering the USB hard drive I have is massive and ugly, but very reliable.)

 

I have this device and used the uNSLUG firmware and added cups, and ssh to it. It's nifty little box but do not expect fast speeds, if memory serves correctly a 500 meg file copies takes about 3-4 mins. If you are fine with Linux then you might want to use another firmware which opens a lot of possiblities to you. See http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ if you haven't already. You can even set up torrent downloads if your willing to get you hands dirty.