Linksys NSLU2

The NSLU2 is in a very neat idea. I'ts basically a small Linux server, an entire community has developed around hacking it to do, well, pretty much anything you can do with a small Linux server. Out-of-the-box, it's intended as a basic "network attached storage" device, an easy way to add storage that you can share among all your computers--even over the Internet, which is apparently a bad idea security-wise--using separate USB-connected hard disks.

The unit is pretty compact, between the NSLU2 and your drive enclosure the wires and transformer blocks take up more space, and can make quite a mess.

Setup for a basic file server that can be accessed by anyone on your network is pretty easy. The interface for the more advanced features like user groups is fairly confusing, you can tell it's a pretty thin shell over top of some elaborate settings.

Many people have experienced problems with the NSLU2 'hanging' during large file transfers, seemingly unable to move more than a few gigs, and I was one of them. A recent firmware upgrade helped some, but for me what cured it was disconneting my old Wap11 wireless access point from the network. That is, of course, quite odd, I have as yet to isolate whether the "problem" is the Wap11 or my switch. Others have had flakiness with particular disk drives and enclosures.

Performance is okay, but unless you are setting up a small office or only work on small files you wouldn't want to actually store working files on it. I got it for storing backups, it is acceptable for that.

It's a nice idea, but too finicky to wholeheartedly recommend.