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...my NSLU2.

Actually, you can do that. Or iSCSI for that matter:
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

The Linksys NSLU2 is easy to get linux on, not too pricey and has USB ports to deal with most stuff. It's got a 133MHz processor as standard, but you can make it 266 by unsoldering something. A nice easy machine for all kinds of things.

If you have to choose between a solid platform that costs $300 (and already has a stable of games available) and a brand-new system that is two hundred bucks more with far fewer games, which one do you think most people will buy?

The one with Linux on it, obviously!

In all seriousness, that was a big factor in my personal decision to buy the - WRT54G wireless router
- NSLU2 storage server
- TiVo
- XBox (original)

Instead of the laptop, set up a LinkSys NSLU2 (From $80) with slugos (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/), and connect a USB-scanner to it. With some shellscripting, you should be ready to go :-)

I don't have a setup near the OP, but it's possible to make something useable for home with no need for a backyard reactor.

I've got two laptops -- one Athlon 64 3200 running XP and one Toshiba P90 ;). The P90 is a debian console for a hacked NSLU2 ebmedded linux device that shares .5TB of files (NFS/smb), web, SQL, mail, VPN and continuous bittorrent. It's tied to 3Mbit DSL through a d-link wireless router (that need to be replaced -- it sucks). Before the NSLU2, I had an old K6-2 toaster in the same role. This thing performs better, runs silent and uses no power. There's no way the site I host would survive if I put the link up here (even assuming the pipe could handle it), but it'll deal with more than what most home users need.

As for power, the main laptop uses 90W at full load and the rest sit on a 400VA UPS that can run it all for at least a couple hours (power's never been out longer than that). Completely satisfactory for home use and negligible power consumption compared to my dishwasher.

Start with the firewall.. I had a Dell server running linux and iptables, freeswan, traffic shaping etc. It rarely even broke a sweat as a firewall, although I really liked having a linux shell on my edge router for testing purposes.. nothing beats tcpdump for figuring out whats going on, and you can't get that type of functionality from even a fancy hardware firewall.

Or can you? Enter the linksys WRT54G. It's a tiny little box with no moving parts. It essentially has 5 nics which can be grouped into switches. It has a 802.11g interface and allows easy connection of big antennas. But most importantly, it runs linux. It runs linux, iptables, tc etc very well, and all the diagnostic tools I wanted to have are still available. This thing has easily paid for itself in power saved.

Next stop, the file server. We all need a box that runs 24/7 and stores massive amounts of files (read pr0n). Once again, I was able to replace a full server with a tiny box. This one is called the linksys NSLU2... a tiny box with two usb ports and a nic. It runs linux, actually it runs Debian which is incredible and kind of blows my mind. But anyways, now all my files are served up by this little thing. It also runs postfix and does some network monitoring for me. Another great feature is that since the drives are all USB, I can turn off the ones that have things I don't need all the time on them. When I need something off them, just turn the drive on and a few seconds later its available.

Third and final optimization was my combination of both a linux and a windows desktop. Todays PCs are really fast, kind of ridiculously fast if you arent playing the latest shoot em up. VMware is free now, and I have found that as long as you have plenty of ram, running linux on win or win on linux are both very usable. So two desktop machines have become one with an extra GB ram. Even better, I can fire up an extra windows box if I want to test something that I don't trust on my real machine (experimenting with WMF's and such) or an extra linux box to try out a new distro etc...

So I've gone from 4 PCs that ran 24/7 to one (and of course a laptop, and a hx4700 ppc, etc etc The small toys don't count ;). I originally thought that these little devices would be unreliable, after all they are pretty cheap. But, both currently have uptimes over 100 days. I even kept the firewall/wireless ap running during a hurricane here last year, they run forever on a ups that wouldn't keep a PC running 15 minutes. It's suprising how quiet the office has become. Over time you don't notice the noise that several PCs can make, but it's significant. I can watch TV in there and hear it without disturbing anyone late at night. The room used to be significantly hotter than all the other rooms in my house, now it's not noticable. I've reclaimed a huge amount of space in my office. Sure, visitors might not immediately realize that I am a total geek, but sometimes that's ok.

PS I don't mean to be advertising Linksys stuff.. you can get similar devices that run the same firmwares and linux distros from other vendors. Check out http://www.openwrt.org/ and http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ for more info.

A pair of NSLU2s with big USB drives was my first thought, too. The NSLU2 is small and silent, and you can pop them open and remove the intentional underclocking by clipping a resistor. (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ has details.)

Mod parent up.

I can't believe anyone would recommend anything else for a geek besides the NSLU2!!

It runs based on Linux, so you can replace the firmware
Not only do you have a NAS device, which you can mirror disks on, but then you can basically add on whatever you want, eg Firewall, web/mail/file server, music center, VOIP PBX, use NFS as well as Samba etc.

Tom's Networking has a little howto on this.

And if you're interested in more information, CmdrTaco I've found this other site where you can often find some good information from users about techy related stuff that matters.

You can hook up several hard drives (or other usb toys) via a usb hub. Performance is not great, but totally fine for storage of music and movies if you only have a few users on your network. It supports samba, ftp, nfs, http, probably any other way you'd like to access the files. You could do software raid or some other type of mirroring/backup if you'd like.

The main reasons I really like this thing for an at home server:

• Silent operation, no fans in the nslu2 and you can get fanless enclosures for the HDs
• Takes very little space away from your home office
• Very small power draw
• Easy to add/remove drives without any reboots
• Can power off drives that aren't used frequently, then turn them on when needed

I was amazed at how quiet my office became after replacing my PC file server with this guy and PC firewall with a wrt54g. I could actually hear the gf talking again, which is the only downside so far.

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/AddUsbWebcam

Hack an NSLU2 with Linux ($70-$80).
Webcam with OV511 (varies.. $20-$50). http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/cameras/index.ph p

You can use the very same NSLU2 with other possibilities too (e.g. x10 control).

Hope this helps

Having the backup done by normal file copying rather than RAID is not a problem in my view - after all, backup is the purpose, and that's done by the firmware. RAID ain't always ideal: A friend of mine had a nice RAID5 setup in his computer. Then the primary drive got corrupted - and that was immediately mirrored to the second drive! He lost all his data...

No mention of the NSLU2 is complete without noting that it's eminently hackable. :)

There are some people having success with using the Linksys NSLU2 and Unslung as an audio player.
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/SlugAsAudioP layer/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001FSCZO/

These are all very low power, no noise, takes minutes to set up (except if hacking them, of course :), Just Work.

Good luck!

-Henrik

This is definitely an excellent product with either nslu2-linux or Debian on it. The disadvantage of Debian is that it doesn't support the integrated LAN port -- you will have to supply a USB network card. ($30 or less)

Don't be so quick to discount the NSLU2. I've got one on my desk here.
I'm glad I replaced the old PC with this little device.

First it meets the usual set of goodness:
  - No fans
  - Can be put anywhere due to its (relatively) tiny size
  - Quiet
  - Much lower power usage

The 32MB of RAM sounds like a limitation at first, but I'd have to say its doing just fine.
I'm running the device off of a USB flash stick, and have Apache2 (with PHP5), the default Samba install, and an FTP server.
As soon as I get a bigger USB flash stick, I'll be able to install more.
I'm trying to decide what to use the second USB port for; Bluetooth connectivity for my phone, or a second network connection for an enhanced firewall setup.
Actually, the Asterisk HOWTO sounds interesting right now...

For a list of ideas of what you can do with the NSLU2:
  http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Applications/HomeP age/
  http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/HomePage/

Don't be so quick to discount the NSLU2. I've got one on my desk here.
I'm glad I replaced the old PC with this little device.

First it meets the usual set of goodness:
  - No fans
  - Can be put anywhere due to its (relatively) tiny size
  - Quiet
  - Much lower power usage

The 32MB of RAM sounds like a limitation at first, but I'd have to say its doing just fine.
I'm running the device off of a USB flash stick, and have Apache2 (with PHP5), the default Samba install, and an FTP server.
As soon as I get a bigger USB flash stick, I'll be able to install more.
I'm trying to decide what to use the second USB port for; Bluetooth connectivity for my phone, or a second network connection for an enhanced firewall setup.
Actually, the Asterisk HOWTO sounds interesting right now...

For a list of ideas of what you can do with the NSLU2:
  http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Applications/HomeP age/
  http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/HomePage/

Most do FTP, some do SSH. Watch out for overheating and buggy Samba installations.

Have you looked at Linksys' NSLU2? There's a very active community focused on exploiting the flexibility of a low-cost, low-energy, Linux-based NAS device. I don't have one myself, but have been eyeing one for some time.

It even runs Linux! (and is hackable to have it do all kinds of extra stuff)

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

Kormac

I recommend the Linksys NSLU2 for cheap NAS. It has no storage itself but takes USB drives and shares them. It also has a great comminity that has replaced the stripped down stock embedded linux with a full featured one.
In addition to serving up disk space with Samba (the firmware I have will do up to 512GB but I'm a little behind. It could allow more now), mine serves a couple moderately trafficked websites, runs a daap server for music, has a bittorrent client running fulltime and acts as a VPN gateway to my office. Sure you can do all of this with a dedicated headless PC, but this thing costs ~$100, runs silent and is tiny (~5"x4"x.8").

Get a linksys NSLU2. It's a network attached storage unit, but it can be flashed with a firmware that lets you basically run Debian on it. Right now, one is serving mail, web, and storage for my domain.

It's no 4-way Xeon when it comes to performance, but at 8W power consumption and a $75 pricetag, you can't go wrong.

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

I'm actually writing an article on how to run a domain from one of those things for AnandTech, so in a few weeks you can read about it there. (Tom's Hardware did an article, but it isn't very good or accurate anymore. Stick with the nslu2-linux site.)

My Linksys NSLU2 has a 133Mhz CPU, 8MB of Flash and 32MB of SDRAM.

It currently runs thttpd as a web server (it can run apache), a SAMBA server, an ftp server, and ccxstream to stream media to my X-Box. Admittedly the web server might struggle if more than a couple of users access it at once, but it suits my needs.

And I don't need to plug it into the USB port of a "real" PC to make it go.

I'm waiting for the wife to discover the $100 I put on the credit card this weekend for the hackable mini-linux box I just bought - an NSLU2. I would have told her but she was already in a mood when I came home...

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/BuildMpd

Or, if you're a bit more hardcore, run OpenSlug which is a firmware-from-scratch solution. Increases the flexibility of the firmware (By allowing USB hubs and more harddrives to be connected, and allows connecting other devices)

This is utter bullshit.

Eh, no, it isn't.

I was looking for some more concrete evidence on power specifically for the CPU and from the datasheet, at 266MHz they quote 1.9W max power. The STPC Elite SoC datasheet (CPU from the example you used) states 4.8W for the x86 at 133MHz. At its been said, the power for the Slug is measured at the wall while the power from the example is measured at the board, with less memory and no peripherals. Also, on the performance side, the datasheet for the STPC Elite states that it uses 486 architecture. The article you refer to contains some Dhrystone figures and they compare to P5 figures at same frequencies. There is no FPU (there is a vector unit) but as its been said, for what this box would be used for there is not much need for floating point so the performance/power ratio would be higher than for an equivalent x86 board.

since ARM is still orders of magnitude more power-efficient than anything x86

This is utter bullshit.

On this page it says that at 133MHz, idle, the board consumes 8.6W. There are plenty of embedded x86 boards that run lower power and/or higher clock frequency.

For example, here's a board that runs at 133MHz, 5 Watt at 100% CPU load.

I've tried (Asterisk is already ported for Unslung). Unfortunately, the NSLU2 just isn't powerful enough for that.
You can get one side of a conversation at most, and it's really jittery.

Try it out anyway - it's an easy install with Unslung!

You can also try using Unslung. They you don't have to do either hack!

As I've said before, use the Unslung distribution instead.
It works with the built-in Ethernet, and doesn't require a serial port hardware modification.

Or use the Unslung distribution instead, which does support the built-in Ethernet.

Unslung can be installed without using a serial port modification, because it simply uses the built-in Linksys web administration to upgrade the firmware to the Unslung distribution.

Once Unslung is installed, it only takes a matter of minutes to have your NSLU2 running Samba, OpenSSH, Apache, Slimserver, and even Asterisk!

1) Yes, see http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ for more info. User's have succeded in adding USB based webcams, bluetooth, ethernet, flashdisks, etc. It's true USB 2.0 so anything that has a Linux driver that will compile under ARM should work fine.

If you don't need a distro as large as Debian, you can run Unslung, which does support the built-in Ethernet.

Unslung uses ipkg for package management and has a simple installation using the native firmware. It is very stable, since it has been available almost since the Linksys product was announced. It is actively being developed and you can talk to the developers via IRC at #nslu2-linux on Freenode.

There is also a Yahoo group for running Linux on the NSLU2.

An even easier way would be to mount an extra heat sensor to an existing servers motherboard and and put it in free air.
You could use the lmsensors package to notify you if the heat goes to high.
seems like as good a solution as any.
Other options would be a Dallas one-wire sensor network interfaced to a Linux or windows box. You could have multi able temperature as well as other sensors interfaced to your network that way. Like, humidity or doors. You could also use the digital out to trigger a loud alarm.
Here is a link to a weather station that is uses Dallas one wire sensors.
http://www2.buoy.com/weather/
If you want an Interesting hack you could use the NSLU as the server. It has two USB ports so you could interface the one wire to one of them and a USB pen drive to the other for logging.
Oh and it runs Linux and has an Ethernet port.
Here is a link for the NSLU-2 http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

I'm using multiple Linksys NSLU2's, an embedded linux box designed to be an Bring Your Own USB Disk file server. Out of the box it only provides SMB file sharing, but mine are running the opensource unslung firmware to give me full control over the system.

I'm doing my backups via automated rsync over ssh, to multiple boxes in multiple locations. Each box has a pair of 250G USB disks, and I'm doing a two stage rsync, a remote to local sync, and a disk to disk sync, with the disk to disk rsync being configured to ignore existing files, so if I get corrupt data on the master server, the first tier of backups will get corrupted as well, but the second tier won't.

Cost per location: $90 for the NSLU2, $160 per disk. Total of just over $400. Compared to the other NAS options out there, a pretty good price. I expect to replace the disks when I see the first round of failures, and I'm hoping the nas box will last 3-4 years. At that point it'll be time to look for the latest tech to use.

Check out the Linksys NSLU2 NAS device. It has a couple USB ports, a Netword adapter, a 266MHz ARM processor, 32MB RAM and an active community porting apps to it.

A website running on this obviusly couldn't stand up to a slashdotting, but it will work for a personal site and does a good job of streaming media around the house (aside from its primary function as a Samba server)

The thing draws next to no power and could easliy replace many of the space heaters wasting power in the average geek's basement.

Sure, it sounds like a wonderful idea until you realize that it's a very ordinary celeron box with fairly ordinary software you can replicate with readily available open source software. This box is going to be expensive to keep running 24/7, too. As already mentioned a microITX box would be cheaper, at the cost of reduced performance. I'd go for a Mac mini myself. It's $100 more than Robertson's solution, but it's tiny and quiet, and you'll probably make up the price difference in a year with your utility bill. I went a much cheaper route: I bought a Linksys NSLU2 ($80), attached a 250GB USB drive ($130), hacked it using the instructions at http://www.nslu2-linux.org/, installed Samba 3 (for Unicode support) and NFS to share music files with my computers (mounting this network volume on a Mac or PC you can easily maintain the collection with iTunes), mt-daapd to serve the music to iTunes and the Roku SoundBridge, and recently jamvm to run the GlooLabs java server so the HomePod can see it too. Not bad for half the price Robertson wants for his lame device. FWIW, the SoundBridge is absolutely wonderful. Don't buy a competing device until you've had a chance to play with one.

Jim Buzbee was one of the first with his articles on Tom's hardware on Hacking the NSLU2.

There are now a number of developers that have extended the abilities and have added over 50 applications packages. You can see their work at the NSLU2 Wiki. They rock! Thanks guys!!!

• I selected Roku Soundbridges. I like the interface, and the display. They can access the network using either 10/100 wired ethernet, or 802.11b wireless and provide analog and digital outputs to feed either powered speakers or your stereo. I have two hanging off the same server setup described above, and they work great.
  
• I can also "mount" the music shared in the manner described above with iTunes. I've only tested this w/ the winderz version, as there are no Macs in the house modern enuf to run iTunes.
  

• The slimserver software, and a software version of their client are available free from their web page. Try before you buy, or buy one squeezebox and use the software version on laptops elsewhere.
  
• Roku _might_ implement synchronized play in the future. I see no reason why they could not.
  
• Roku supports "tuning" internet radio stations. I plan to set up a stream, fed by another piece of software looking at the same set of files so that I have my own internet radio station in the house. I've used jwz's gronk, which is a web-based jukebox package for this purpose before with success, but will also consider grind this time around. I do not know if I will achieve synchronization this way or not, but I'm hoping.
  
• Gronk and Grind do not use ID3 tags, so when I originally ripped a lot of my music for Gronk, I didn't care about the ID3s. All of the rest of this software DOES care, so I have a bit of a mess on my hands.
  
• Gronk is written in Perl, so it's hackable. This comes in handy tweaking things like sort order, whether to include "the' in the band name, etc. JWZ also provides a demo version to play with on the site below.
  
• Another way to get the synchronized music, and to serve over wireless, although not the way you originally asked, is to set up an FM transmitter. I have not yet done this for this project, but my prior Gronk installation supported one of those micropowered fm transmitters intended for use with mp3 players in cars just fine.
  

• 
  Linksys NSLU-2
  Unslung firmware for the NSLU-2
  Roku Soundbridge
  Squeezebox and Slimserver
  mt-daapd on Sourceforge
  JWZ's Gronk
  Grind
  A review of a REAL FM transmitter
  

I've got a Linksys NSLU2 running the Unslung firmware. The Unslung firmware lets me run the NSLU2 as an rsync server.

On my Powerbook I'm running rsync, configured with rsyncbackup.

I live on the East Coast but travel to the West Coast every couple months. I've got it configured so that every night my powerbook just backs itself up to my NSLU2 sitting under the bed (with a very quiet 350GB Maxtor USB drive) no matter where I am.

I also back up my gf's Win2K and WinXP laptops as well as a FreeBSD box on the West Coast. I'm very happy with the setup.

Their NSLU2 runs Linux also.

The WRT54G isn't the only thing from Linksys that runs Linux. The NSLU2 is a designed to be a NAS solution. But you can hack the firmware to run practically whatever you want. Supports up to two hard drives (connected via USB) and has an Intel XScale (ARM) processor. It has no fans, so the only noise comes from the drive(s) you attach to it. You can pick one up for about $80.