Actually there are two boards which are very close and there is no proper path for the generated heat to go. The PSU is not the problem which was the case with older models of Sheevaplug where the PSU would fail after sometime due to a bad capacitor.
Yes adding a heatsink or fan is a solution, many people have done it and are quite successful, but you lose out the warranty and it won't look so good. There is no space inside to add anything more, its already cramped. So as part of the redesign they are making the following changes
A new inductor on the motherboard
A new daughterboard with a new power management chip
it is just as i imagined... using it, however, is much easier. with the tonido image to boot, setup was a breeze. all i had to do was attach a usb drive and a network cable and power it up. once online, you navigate to the products page where it locates your plug and makes you go through necessary username and password setup which is very very simple and voila your plug is setup and running your own cloud. have tested torrents, file sharing over the internet with guest accounts and privileges, nas with speeds ranging b/w 2-6mbps, streaming media and still the plug never uses more than 10% cpu power.
project now is to boot it off the usb instead of the nand flash and install transmission as that is what i am most well-versed with now...
total damages - almost 9k (Rs.7500 shipped + customs and sundry)
I got two... so have one more if anyone here is interested to buy it !
^ The power usage for the plug will be around 5-6w. You can connect any USB external hard disk to the Tonido Plug. Although its recommended to connect 2.5" drives through a powered USB hub, as there have been reports of PSU failures for the Sheevaplug, don't know the case with the TonidoPlug
well as rightly stated by varkey, any usb HDD can be used. i prefer to use externally powered ones like the one shown in the video (please bear with quality, it has been shot using my BB 8130 at 2am). its a buffalo casing housing a 1TB seagate 3.5" sata hdd.
great..that means i can use cased-internal 3.5 hdds with this setup. With such a low power footprints and priced bit lower thn a atom setup its looks damn attractive. what about the support ? do you get warranty ?
^ Yes its really good. And if you get the GuruPlug or the eSata sheevaplug, you connect eSata drives and can use it as a NAS with really good speeds. And it supports Port Multiplier too so you can use a multi bay hard disk enclosure thus a good NAS.
well no warranty offered here... hardware support is also pretty much limited. at this price i felt its worth experimenting. was going for the guruplug first... then the heating issues it has for now made me decide to get this instead...
^ The GuruPlug has 30 days warranty. Pretty limited but due to the heating issues they have extended it. I will be getting a redesigned version of GuruPlug once its ready. Have to send mine back, they'll pay the shipping.
