Home Network Upgrades

knowbodies · 12-21-08, 02:11 PM

I made some some changes here in the Knowbodies Server Cave. A new NAS box (Network Attached Storage) and an upgraded switch.

The previous switch was a Netgear 16 port 10/100Mbps switch that used 8W 24*7. It was replaced with a Dlink DGS-1008D. It's an 8 port gigabit switch from their GreenEthernet line. It disables ports that are not in use to save energy. According to my Kill-a-watt, it uses 5W when idle and ramps up to 7W depending on how many devices I have powered on. A bit of a savings over my previous switch but mostly I like the vast increase in speed for network file transfers.

My previous NAS was a fanless Intel Little Valley board mated with a 500GB Seagate hard drive. In its last incarnation under Ubuntu 8.04, it was using about 29W (with the help of a little utility called Powertop). I was really only using it as a file server and bittorrent client. It saw very limited use for any other purposes.

I replaced it with yet another Dlink product - a DNS-323. It's much less capable than my old server but is significantly more power efficient. I recycled my Seagate hard drive into it. Under heavy load, it uses 17W, 16W under normal load and 11W when the hard drive is idle. That should drop in a few months when I do my yearly hard drive upgrade. 2.5inch laptop drives have finally reached a size where they are a viable alternative for my purposes (Western Digital has a 500GB drive that uses 2.5W in read/write and idles at 0.25W).

The only thing about it that really bugs me is the complete lack of security. It does support multiple usernames and passwords but all network usage is in plain text. Admin access is over HTTP rather then HTTPS. It supports FTP rather than SCP. There's a hack to enable telnet but not SSH. Even passwords prevent the use of special characters (i.e. #$%%^). As a consumer product, I can sort of understand some of these choices but the lack of HTTPS and passwords limitations are really bothersome. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a decent custom firmware community so maybe someone will provide a properly secured firmware.

Other than the security issues (which can generally be overlooked for most people), I'm pretty happy with it. I'll see how it holds out.

12-21-08, 02:11 PM	#1
knowbodies Home Improvement Goon Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Moose Jaw, SK, CA Posts: 96 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Home Network Upgrades I made some some changes here in the Knowbodies Server Cave. A new NAS box (Network Attached Storage) and an upgraded switch. The previous switch was a Netgear 16 port 10/100Mbps switch that used 8W 24*7. It was replaced with a Dlink DGS-1008D. It's an 8 port gigabit switch from their GreenEthernet line. It disables ports that are not in use to save energy. According to my Kill-a-watt, it uses 5W when idle and ramps up to 7W depending on how many devices I have powered on. A bit of a savings over my previous switch but mostly I like the vast increase in speed for network file transfers. My previous NAS was a fanless Intel Little Valley board mated with a 500GB Seagate hard drive. In its last incarnation under Ubuntu 8.04, it was using about 29W (with the help of a little utility called Powertop). I was really only using it as a file server and bittorrent client. It saw very limited use for any other purposes. I replaced it with yet another Dlink product - a DNS-323. It's much less capable than my old server but is significantly more power efficient. I recycled my Seagate hard drive into it. Under heavy load, it uses 17W, 16W under normal load and 11W when the hard drive is idle. That should drop in a few months when I do my yearly hard drive upgrade. 2.5inch laptop drives have finally reached a size where they are a viable alternative for my purposes (Western Digital has a 500GB drive that uses 2.5W in read/write and idles at 0.25W). The only thing about it that really bugs me is the complete lack of security. It does support multiple usernames and passwords but all network usage is in plain text. Admin access is over HTTP rather then HTTPS. It supports FTP rather than SCP. There's a hack to enable telnet but not SSH. Even passwords prevent the use of special characters (i.e. #$%%^). As a consumer product, I can sort of understand some of these choices but the lack of HTTPS and passwords limitations are really bothersome. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a decent custom firmware community so maybe someone will provide a properly secured firmware. Other than the security issues (which can generally be overlooked for most people), I'm pretty happy with it. I'll see how it holds out.