heinkraanen: I don't want to rain on your parade, but keep in mind these NAS devices are not intended to run complex applications like SlimServer. They are not PCs and are not intended to have 3rd party applications loaded onto them.
They'll fall in 3 categories: 1. Full SlimServer support. QNAP TS-101 and Infrant ReadyNAS. Very rare. Limitations even on these: you have to wait for the manufacturer to upgrade to a new SlimServer version (which contains the Squeezebox firmware), limited plugin availability and restricted (QNAP) or no (Infrant) transcoding. 2. "Hackable" SlimServer support. There's only one "open" NAS where this is manufacturer-supported: the Kurobox. On others, you'll have to install 3rd party firmware to be able to install 3rd party applications. This can be accomplished with varying degrees of difficulty, will almost surely void your warranty and may "brick" your NAS if done improperly (i.e. make it about as functional as a brick.) Examples of hackable NASes: Buffalo Linkstation, Linksys NSLU2. More common than category 1. 3. No third party firmware. You're on your own with these, and manufacturers are unlikely to support you. You can ask, but they will probably say "what the heck is SlimServer?" They may get 20 requests a day for stuff they've never heard of before. The vast majority of NAS devices fall into this category. Some of these devices may not even run Linux but might run something proprietary like VxWorks, in which case you're completely stuffed. While SlimServer can actually run on some pretty low-powered hardware, it's complicated and needs Perl support. Installing it on just any embedded application like a NAS box is not a trivial undertaking - remember, the manufacturers don't want you messing around in there. Again, these are not PCs and don't use conventional PC hardware and technology - the OS isn't running off a hard disk but off flash memory, there's no keyboard or monitor interface, the processor isn't very powerful, etc. All this makes modifying them hard, a lot harder than a PC. I don't mean to run this idea down, but you'll probably receive a generic "we don't support 3rd party applications" from Freecom, which is the standard response they give to the 10 SlimServer requests per week, the 20 MythTV requests they get per week, the 40 iTunes requests they get per week and the 2 "Billy Bob's super-duper Linux app" requests they get per week. You'd be much better off building a low-powered, fanless PC out of a VIA mini-ITX fanless motherboard. Or at the very least, go with something that's been done before: Linksys NSLU2, Buffalo Linkstation, QNAP, Infrant. I don't want to sound mean, but unless you go with a device that has 3rd party firmware available or supports SlimServer right out of the box you're wasting time. There are lots of NAS boxes out there right now, they're becoming quite popular, and you'll easily find hundreds more if you look. But only a very few can run SlimServer. Again, I don't want to offend you but I think you're spinning your wheels here. A Google search for "networked attached storage" turns up 50 600 000 hits. I bet 500-1000 of those are for NAS boxes. -- Mark Lanctot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Lanctot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2071 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22820 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
