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NetBSD Powered iSCSI Accesible Appliance Released

Posted by chrisd on from the wasabi-makes-fish-taste-good dept.

hubertf writes "TeamASA and Wasabi Systems cooperated to bring out a new "Personal Internet Network Attached Storage/Server" which runs on a 733MHz XScale CPU, does LVD SCSI and Gbit Ethernet with AppleTalk, Samba and most interestingly iSCSI to access the system. And of course this runs on NetBSD! Check out the appliance's web page." Looks like a really nice box.

16 comments

  1. BSD is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...alive and well ;)

  2. Xscale Vs. Pentium+ by arcadum · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What benefit does the Xscale line offer over a power-conserving pentium/2/3/4?

    1. Re:Xscale Vs. Pentium+ by darkov · · Score: 4, Informative

      What benefit does the Xscale line offer over a power-conserving pentium/2/3/4?

      An Xscale, and any ARM based processor, will make any Pentium look like a bar heater. They have very, very low power consumption for the performance.

      --
      Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
    2. Re:Xscale Vs. Pentium+ by questionlp · · Score: 5, Informative

      An XScale processor will run at very low power, even compared to most ultra-low voltage Pentium II/III processors and much lower than Pentium 4 processors. Also, the XScale processors include a lot of logic built-in so that it doesn't need a full northbridge/southbridge (which adds to the power consumption and board space).

      Also, in most cases, you can run an XScale processor without any active cooling... a basic heatsink (or none at all) should do the trick. Again, that shrinks down the overall size of the device.

      Also, in those kind of embedded devices, you don't need a processor with an FPU... instead, you just need code that is optimized for the specified purpose.

    3. Re:Xscale Vs. Pentium+ by questionlp · · Score: 4, Informative
      I forgot to add a reference to the above power usage statements. Accord to Intel's 80200 product page:
      Even at 733 MHz the Intel 80200 processor dissipates less than 1.3W! This is accomplished using the Intel® Superpipelined RISC Technology-the 7-stage integer, 8-stage memory superpipelined core achieves high speed with ultra-low power consumption.
      Try getting a Pentium 4 to dissipate less than 5W of heat during normal usage. An Ultra Low-Voltage Pentium 3 can probably get that low but only in power-saving mode.

      It looks like you still have to add an external controller chip for devices, but it's probably smaller than the ICH2 and ICH4 found in almost all Pentium 4 systems.

    4. Re:Xscale Vs. Pentium+ by ggruschow · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Try getting a Pentium 4 to dissipate less than 5W of heat during normal usage.

      I can easily get my P4 to dissipate less than 5W of heat, during normal usage..

      ... on average

      ... if normal use means turning it off for 22 hours a day.

  3. Price? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    They don't give the price? How annoying! Yeah, yeah, I know... If you have to know the price, you can't afford it.

  4. 733 MHz XScale? huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When did they come out with this?

  5. They didn't like american music by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    They never heard american music.

  6. /.'ed by screamingelectron · · Score: -1

    Appears to be /.'ed in under an hour. Wow! I thought they ran NetBSD over there.

    1. Re:/.'ed by screamingelectron · · Score: -1, Redundant

      It was down when I tried to visit it.... Plus, that was a funny comment. If you knew anything about NetBSD you'd of modded me up

  7. Re:733 MHz XScale? huh? by shaitand · · Score: 3, Funny

    They came out with it at 10:53pm, I find slashdot latency is horrible, took a whole minute for it to get here. Doh, it's 20 minutes old already, refresh your browser to check out the next xscale powered appliance, this one is obsolete.

  8. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

    FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dying

  9. Dude!! UR getting a Dell!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too bad it won't run Net-BSD!! (what w/ it being usb and all). LOL!!

    U can run it on that $20 486 tho! LOL!

    1. Re:Dude!! UR getting a Dell!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Too bad it won't run Net-BSD!! (what w/ it being usb and all). LOL!!
      Not sure if I understand the USB reference. NetBSD has had USB support for longer than any other open source operating system.
  10. Where to buy? by crazyeddie · · Score: 1

    So...anyone know where these things are for sale? TeamASA doesn't appear to have any distributors. I'd just like to know how much $$ I need to save. ;)