I don't mean to point fingers specifically at Soekris devices for being "hard" on power supplies; I don't think they are. Rather it sounds like the average low power DC supply on the market today just isn't that great. For most uses, say occasional use powering a portable hard drive, that's no big deal. However, it seems like the Soekris device -- based on its bullet-proof, no-moving-parts, just-let-it-run design -- puts a continuous rather than sporadic demand on the power supply. In the average year I suspect the power supply for my portable USB drive is on approximately 100-200 hours. By comparison my Soekris boxes run continuously, or 59808 hours per year.
I don't think Soekris boxes are particularly hard on power supplies, but it's not clear 1.5A is adequate (or if the labeled-1.5A supplies really do source 1.5A - I should put one on my West Mountain Radio CBA-2 and see how it copes.). I have now hooked up my net5501 to several 12V lead-acide batteries (30Ah, 3*4Ah) on float charge via: http://www.westmountainradio.com/product_info.php?products_id=rr_4008_c http://www.powerwerx.com/batteries-chargers/power-tender-plus-12v.html So far I have had no recurrences of the USB lockups, but it's only been syncing for 3h. If the box is reliable with the solid supply, I would say the 1.5A Soekris-provided supplies are only adequate for a net5501 with no disk and no external USB devices. Someone should hook up a current probe to a storage scope and get some real data....
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