Streaming media from a NAS

What have I been up to? On a hunt for a good NAS that’s powerful enough to do some other things like run an mail server and run my favorite media server, Slimserver. I looked at quite a few including the Linksys NSLU2, the QNAP TS-101 but think I have finally settled on the Buffalo Linkstation Pro. Not sure which version I want … a 250G seems like it oughta be enough since I don’t intend to store videos out there, just some email and about 50G of music. Still, you never know what you’re gonna end up with, do you? And, since it’s not a Terastation, there’s no RAID so whatever I’m going to want to backup whatever I store out there.

Since SlimDevices was purchased by Logitech, I searched for and found this article which pointed me to this good set of instructions for how to install SlimsServer on the Linkstation (and, of course, this posting in the SlimDevices Forums). And, in further searching, I found LinkstationWiki which has a wealth of other information about the various software that you can download and install on it.

When do I start? Well, let’s see where I can get a good deal …

Update, 3/19/2007: it would make sense that if you run Linux on the Linkstation, that you could plug a printer into one of the USB ports and get a print server out of it too by running CUPS. HP printer drivers are available here at The Linux Foundation, their OpenPrinting working group.

And, while I’m updating this entry, the Linkstation Pro is supposed to be available without a disk as another incarnation of the Kurobox, as reported by Akihabaranews.

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