Storage Solutions ETrayz or external HDD connected to WiFi router

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The_Falcon

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Hi Guyz,

I am planning to set up a home network for watching movies and downloading torrents. I was thinking of two alternate setups:

Setup 1:
Cisco 610N + WD 1TB connected to it
Xtreamer connected to Cisco 610N via WiFi

Setup2:

Cisco 610N connected to PC
eTrayz with 1TB HDD hardwired to Xtreamer and the Xtreamer connected by WiFi to Cisco

Which of the two setups should I go for ?
 
was in a similar situation like u and i went with the asus 520gu thats on sale currently.. run it flawless as a nas with a 2.5 freeagent 500gigger. utra low power consumtion nas which can even stream 720p videos without any buffer, so im really happy .. i saved up alot eventually. though with etrayz ur not going wrong at all.. depends what sorta space and plans u have for it..
havent managed 2 get the torrent downloader to work on it yet but thats entirely coz of me lol ill try n reset it again over the coming weekend and let u know how it goes.. so far my setups good for me.. dont think i could ask for me. edrill uses the same router u plan to.. which is also great.. so if u wanna save up some $$ .. go for it.. otherwise etrayz it is.
 
I've got a WRT610N running DD-WRT with a 1TB WD MyBook, running Transmission for torrents, and functioning as a NAS server for my network, without any major problems. Speeds are nothing to write home about, but it does the job for now. This is partly because the DD-WRT firmware for this router currently uses Linux kernel 2.4, which apparently has issues with USB 2.0. Once it's been upgraded to 2.6, speeds should improve vastly. I've got a WRT610N v1. The DD-WRT firmware for the v2 units has recently been upgraded to 2.6, but I've not seen too many reports about the speed via USB on it.
 
I think it would depend on the kind of storage and power consumption you are looking at. If you are looking at somewhere around 500GB - 1 TB, then the Router + External HDD Combo should suffice in terms of storage plus power consumption. But if you are looking in excess of 1 TB then i would say go for a E-Trayz setup.

@edrill - This is just my personal opinion, but from the very first day i felt that DD-WRT was the most flawed firmware ever built. I still remember flashing it on my old WRT54GL's and ending up with a lot of grief. But i guess that wasnt enough so i revisited the grief by trying it on the ASUS router. Finally turned to tomato for better stability and peace of mind :P. So what if i cant use the torrent client atleast the nas combo plus stability is far more convenient. I think ill just wait till these guys build a torrent client for the tomato, because it still remains the most rock solid firmware. PERIOD.

Edit: Apparently today i was browsing the linksysinfo forum and there is a new twist in the tale. Optware installation is possible even through the tomato firmware. Tomato ND USB Mod - LinksysInfo - Community Forums for Linksys Devices

With USB enabled you can install Optware and additional software packages. Follow instructions in this post, and in DD-WRT Optware Wiki to install Optware (but do not modify search PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH as dd-wrt wiki says). Standard builds of this firmware do not include tools to partition USB drives, or to format them using Ext2/Ext3 Linux native filesystems. To do that you either need a Linux box, or you can use the set of utilities prepared by ray123 and posted here. Starting from v 20, the set of Ext2/Ext3 filesystem utilities is also included into the "Extras" build.

The possibilities are endless with optware. Torrent, rapidshare, mediaserver, and lots of more add-ons to add some icing on the cake. But the only constraint being time, which means that this experiment would take a while :).
 
thats awesome news then.. these little wonders r bad ass :) great 2 hear firmwares keep getting better n better with more app support
 
@rushabt: I totally agree that Tomato is a far more stable option than DD-WRT. Unfortunately for me, the WRT610N is not supported by Tomato! :( Everyone I know that has a compatible router, has been coaxed into using Tomato! If only they had support for the WRT610N!

And yes, Optware is an amazing package! The possibilities are truly endless! Can't mess around with the Twonky media server, since I don't have any devices to stream media to! I'll definitely give the Rapidshare client a go when I get the time to sit down and mess with it!
 
@RUSHABT

I plan to start with 1TB, but I am sure I will max it out soon with my load of FHD movies. I think as per your suggestion I should go for the eTrayz. But it allows a maximum of 4TB only; with my habit of not deleting watched movies I think I may run out of space on it too. But it does seem a decent buy as compared to many other NAS solutions.
 
Instead of this connect you PC to Router with RJ45, eTrayz to Router with RJ45 and Xtreamer with wifi, so anywaere you can play movies and your eTrayz will be always connected to internet for full speed downloads and no need to run the PC all the time for downloads.Let me know from where you are sourcing eTrayz as i also need one, but just waiting for their 59 euro offer :S
The_Falcon said:
Setup2:Cisco 610N connected to PC
eTrayz with 1TB HDD hardwired to Xtreamer and the Xtreamer connected by WiFi to Cisco
Click to expand...
 
The_Falcon said:
@RUSHABT

I plan to start with 1TB, but I am sure I will max it out soon with my load of FHD movies. I think as per your suggestion I should go for the eTrayz. But it allows a maximum of 4TB only; with my habit of not deleting watched movies I think I may run out of space on it too. But it does seem a decent buy as compared to many other NAS solutions.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, i almost spent 2 months to zero down on a VFM NAS. Etrayz turned out to be the 'cheapest' option for me considering the other ones available in the market if bought with the media player. If budget is a constraint then there is another NAS by intel. You can hook it up with 2 X 2 TB Drives, and you're good to go. But availability of intel is one big issue, so that should be kept in mind.

Link for Intel NAS: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2021752
 
RD350 said:
...Let me know from where you are sourcing eTrayz as i also need one, but just waiting for their 59 euro offer :S
Click to expand...

I will w8 till after Christmas..hope the price comes down ! Will visit Lamington Rd. some time soon and check if anyone has it there...else will get directly from Xtreamer website.
 
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