Making a network appliance

So, I've been neglecting this blog again. It's what I do - a flurry of activity followed by weeks of indifference. But spurred on by a comment from Pip, I've got something I should show off.

This here is my new network appliance. It's a Linksys NSLU2 (aka a Linksys Slug) with a pair of hard drives in an old DVD Recorder case. The Slug, bottom right, is a tiny Linux box that is used to put USB devices on a network, and being Linux-based it's absurdly hackable. I've got it hooked up to two hard drives via generic USB-to-IDE adaptors, picked up off eBay for about £8 each. These are the sort of thing that every self-respecting geek should have knocking about the place because they're incredibly useful for hooking up drives to PCs for data recovery and things like that - and they're so cheap you can afford to have one in a drawer, just in case.

On the bottom left side are the two power supplies that came with the USB-to-IDE adaptors. They take 240V from a kettle-lead and output 5V and 12V on a Molex connector, and plug straight into hard drives or optical drives. Originally I'd planned on using the original PSU from the DVD recorder to run everything but I realised that the peak power consumption could be a little higher than what it was rated for, so I had to get creative to get everything running from a single mains lead. In the end I made a little distribution box from terminal blocks and ran mains cables to the drive PSUs and to the crazy adaptor visible at the top right - to run 240V into the Slug's "wall wart" adaptor I hacked open an old three-way adaptor and reworked it to become a low-profile UK mains socket.

Incredibly, it all works! It runs a little hot at the moment though, because I've not managed to get the drives to spin down when not in use - I need to do a little hacking to get that fixed. I've kept the original fan in the case so that I can get some extra airflow in there as well - I'll just tap 12V from one of the drive PSUs.

Here it is, running quietly in the corner of the living room in its small, recycled case. It looks like a DVD Player - amazing!

What next? Expansion. I've got a 4-port USB hub in there as well, so I can run three more USB sockets to the back of the case, and getting the drives to sleep is top of the agenda.

So there you go, Pip!