Create AFP NAS with USB Hard Drives

[Vandal.]

Hey guys,

I have an external 4-bay USB3.0/eSATA hard drive enclosure that I would like to share via AFP. The router in my network is a Linksys/Cisco e4200v1 with USB port and sharing ability but I only get about 6 mbps transfer speed out of it and have to share via Samba which seems buggy. As the main use of this setup is media streaming and Time Machine backups, slow speed and the disability to use AFP are major drawbacks so I would like to change it.

So I basically want to create a NAS with AFP sharing abilities and decent speed.

Any USB network adapter that I came across so far didn't support AFP or HFS+ altogether, does anyone know if one that does exists? I also saw a dead Airport Extreme without WiFi on eBay that might do the trick as I would basically only use it as LAN adapter. The USB port on the Extreme should get me about 20 mbps, is that about right? I could bite the bullet and buy another enclosure or built a FreeNAS box but that's not really financially feasible right now.

Do you guys have any other ideas or input for this?

Thanks a ton,
V

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Synology USB 2?

 

[reebzor]

Buy a Raspberry Pi.

You'll be able to accomplish this and more for $35

 

[fortysomegeek]

Hey guys,

I have an external 4-bay USB3.0/eSATA hard drive enclosure that I would like to share via AFP.
Do you guys have any other ideas or input for this?

Thanks a ton,
V

PogoPlug hacked and running ArchLinux. There are tons of tutorials on this.
THey go for as low as $15 for the eO2 model. All you need is a usb boot stick and you are good to go. I totally recommend this. $15. I've bought 6 of these and implemented this for friends and family. It uses less than 4w so your power consumption is a few pennies a month.

There is the V4 model which is a bit more expensive. $40-80 depending ion how aggressively you shop around. That one has a direct SATA connector with port multiplication so in plug directly into to the eSATA port of your eSATA enclosure.

I use my Pogoplug for timemachine. Works pretty good and there are tons and tons of info on the internet, message board, blogs on how to do this. DId I say, $15. Yep. shop around the discount sites like slickdeals and you'll find companies like J&R, B&H selling them for $15. In my opinion. Way better than Raspberry PI with gigabit.

 

[Vandal.]

Thanks a lot guys!

The Synology seems quite expensive for it's speed, but I have to read up on it a little more. I had looked at the Raspberry before and that little device sounds fun to built and play around with, but again, the speeds with larger files seem to be the same I'm getting now with the e4200 at best.

The Pogoplug on the other hand sounds really interesting, 35 mbps and more is about what I would get connecting my enclosure straight to my Mac Mini's USB port. It's a pity the v4 doesn't perform better with USB3.0 or SATA, at least that's what I read on s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶g̶ fortysomegeek's blog

Which Pogoplug model would you recommend?

 

[fortysomegeek]

at least that's what I read on s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶g̶ fortysomegeek's blog

Which Pogoplug model would you recommend?

I'd get the EO2. $15-20 is hard to beat. Especially just to experiment. If you don't like it, use the cloud service and you'll at least have backup for your smartphone and tablet.

 

[Vandal.]

Ah, thanks. The EO2 actually seems quite hard to find over here in Germany, are there any drawbacks with the newer models or should I just stay away from the v4?

edit: never mind, this is getting off topic, I will take this to the Arch Linux message boards. Thanks a lot for the info again everyone.