28 Jun 2008
I just bought a
Buffalo LinkStation Mini 500GB
Networked Attached Storage (NAS) device. It’s a very small
fanless Linux file server with two 250 GB hard drives, 128 MB of RAM, a 266
MHz ARM CPU and a gigabit Ethernet port.
My reasons for buying a NAS
- I wanted to provide a reliable backup of family photos and documents, and I was getting tired of burning CDs and DVDs.
- I wanted a small Linux-based server I could play with.
My reason for buying the LinkStation Mini
- It’s fanless.
- It’s tiny.
- Buffalo has a good reputation for NAS quality.
- There is a decent sized Buffalo NAS hacking community.
- Fry’s had it on sale. :-)
Setting it up
Setup was very easy – I unpacked the box, pluged everything in, and installed
a CD of utility programs. The main feature of the utility program is that it
helps find the IP address of the NAS. All the actual administration of the NAS
is done via a Web UI.
To RAID or not to RAID
The LinkStation Mini comes with two identical drives, initially set up as
RAID0. This means that files are split across the two drives, which means that
if either drive fails all your files will be lost. Using the Web UI, I
reformatted the drives to RAID1, which means that each file is stored on both
drives. This of course halves the amount of disk space available to store
files, but I thought the added security was worth it. This process of
switching over was fairly easy to do, but it erases all the data on the drives
and it takes about 80 minutes.
RAID1 is more secure than RAID0, but it is not perfectly secure. There’s still
a chance of losing all the data if the controller goes bad, or if the whole
device is stolen or destroyed. So for extra security I will probably end up
buying a second NAS (or USB 2.0 drive), and setting up an automatic backup of
the backup device. The Mini can be set to perform periodic automatic backups
to a second LinkStation for this very reason. Once I do that, I’ll probably
reformat my NAS’s drives back to RAID0 to enjoy the extra storage space.
Getting Access to Linux root
There is a program called acp_commander, that enables you to remotely log
in as root on any Buffalo LinkStation Mini on the same LAN as your PC. Once
logged in as root you can read and write any file on the NAS. You can use this
power to install software and reconfigure your system.
Yes, this is a security hole – it means anyone with access to your local
LAN can bypass all the security on the file server.
Very advanced users can patch the security hole by following the instructions at this web forum.
I think it’s extremely negligent of Buffalo to configure their NAS devices in
this way. Imagine the uproar if Microsoft shipped a product with this kind of
security hole.
Playing with Linux
Once I obtained root access to the Mini I was able to install additional
software. I installed the
Optware package system,
which gives access to a wide variety of precompiled utility programs, as well
as tools for writing new programs.
(Yeah, I know, it’s crazy to run software on a file server that’s supposed to
be backing up important data. Right now I’m just having fun playing with my
new toy, but eventually I’m going to have to get serious about making it work
reliably.)
From looking at what other people have done, I am thinking that I might set up
a small web server, or perhaps a media server for streaming music and video.
Thinking of the Future
There’s an active LinkStation hacking community at
buffalo.nas-central.org. Unfortunately the Linkstation
Mini is so new that
nobody in the NAS hacking community knows much about it.
Right
now it seems to be similar to a LinkStation Pro Duo,
but only experience will show
if this is true.
The Mini comes with a USB 2.0 port, to which you can attach a printer and/or a
hard disk. While the hard disk isn’t part of a RAID array, it could be used to
back up the RAID array, providing an additional layer of security.
Alternatives
There must be 20 different NAS vendors, although many of them just repackage
reference designs made by the SOC vendors. SOC mean System on Chip. Marvell
seems to be the dominant player in the NAS SOC market these days. A good
overview of available NAS products can be found by visiting
Small Net Builder.
Some brands like Revolution,
QNAP and
Synology cater to
enthusiasts who are interested in using the NAS as a mini Linux server. The
only thing that stopped me from buying those brands is that (a) they’re more
expensive, and (b) they don’t currently have fanless RAID1 form factors.
The Revolution brand is actually owned by Buffalo. They add hardware daughter
boards to standard Buffalo products. The daughter boards have extra flash
chips and I/O connectors. It’s possible that there will be a Revolution “Kuro
box” version of the Mini some day.
The venerable (out-of-production, but still available in stores) Linksys
NSLU2 product is fanless and cheap, and very
popular with hackers, but you need to add hard
drives, and I don’t think its networking performace is very good compared to
more recent products.
Another approach is to use a PC, either running a regular OS like Windows XP,
Windows Server, OSX or Linux, or a special-purpose stripped-down NAS version.
I do have an old PC currently running Windows Media Center that I could use
for this purpose, but I didn’t seriously consider this option because I wanted
something small, low-power, and quiet. (And I was looking for an excuse to
learn how to administer a Linux system anyway.)
Apple makes NAS products too. Their the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule
products both look OK, but neither one supports RAID1. And there doesn’t seem
to be a software hacking community around these products. There is a software
hacking community around the AppleTV, which you could make into a NAS by
adding some USB 2.0 hard drives.
Some routers (like the Apple Airport Extreme mentioned above) have USB 2.0
ports, but I think they avoid advertising themselves as NAS products because
they don’t have enough RAM (or CPU) to act as both routers and file servers.
As a result, these products tend to have relatively low NAS performance.
Some people would laugh at a NAS that has only 240GB of storage. They are more
interested in the high-end NASes that use four or five 1GB disks. When
formatted in RAID5 configuration those NASes have 3GB of usable space. But
they also cost $600 plus the cost of the drive ($160 each). Which is much more
than I wanted to spend. Besides the cost, another drawback is that these
products are nearly as large and noisy as regular PCs. Still, if you’ve got a
lot of video (or are anticipating generating a lot of video in the future) the
larger NASs are the way to go.
A NAS in Every Garage?
While all my friends and I are setting up file servers to store their family’s
videotapes, I’m not sure if the product will become universally popular. I
think it will depend on how people’s secure storage needs evolve.
We’re already seeing small files (email, photos, low-res videos) being stored
in the cloud. It seems like it’s just a matter of time before everything is.
Unless people suddenly come up with compelling new applications that use
dramatically more data (holographic TV perhaps?), it seems likely that
people’s personal storage needs are going to top out in the next decade. If
disk capacity and network bandwidth keep growing at a rapid pace for several
decades beyond that, then it seems inevitable that cloud storage will
eventually take over.
In any event, by the time this happens my little Mini will long since have
been retired. (I remember paying $100 apiece for 1GB Jaz disks back in the
day. It’s amazing how far and how fast storage prices have fallen.) If all
goes well, my my family’s photos and other important documents will still be
around!
08 Jun 2008
I went to the Computer History Museum
today. I saw the Visual Storage exhibit, which is a collection of famous
computers, the Babbage Difference Engine, which is a very elaborate
reproduction of a never-actually-built Victorian era mechanical calculator,
and the PDP-1 demo. This last demo was very special to me, because I finally
got to play the original Spacewar!
game, and meet and chat with Steve
Russell, the main developer.
(Perusing Wikipedia I now realize that Steve was also an early Lisp hacker.
D’Oh!, I was going to ask a question about Lisp on the PDP-1, but I got
distracted.)
There’s a Java Spacewar! emulator, but it doesn’t properly convey the
look of the PDP-1 radar-scope-based display. The scope displays individual
dots, 20,000 times per second. Each dot starts as a fuzzy bright blue-white
dot, but then fades quickly to a dim yellow-green spot, which takes another 10
seconds to fade to black. This means that dim yell0w-green trails form behind
the ships as they fly around. These trails add a lot to the game’s distinctive
look. (In addition, due to time multi-plexing, the stars of the starfield are
much dimmer than the space ships or the sun.) The fuzzyness of the dots means
that the spaceships look much smoother on the PDP-1 scope than they do in the
Java simulator.
According to Steve Russel and the other docents, the Java
version also runs faster than a real PDP-1.
I also got to see serveral other
cool PDP-1 hacks, including the original Munching Squares, 4-voice square-wave
computer synthezed music, and the famed Minskeytron. The author of the music
synth program, Peter
Sampson, was
present, and explained how he carefully patched into four of the console
lights to make a four-voice D/A converter to get music out of the machine.
They keep all the hacks loaded into the PDP-1 core at the same time, and just
use the front panel to decide which one to jump to. The core memory is non-
volitile. The PDP-1 even booted in a few seconds – just the time it took the
power supply to come up to speed.
The PDP-1 demo is given twice a month, on
the second and fourth Saturdays. I highly recommend it for adults and children
over 12. (It’s 45 minutes long, so younger kids might get bored.)
05 Jun 2008
I recently spent a lot of time using two different in-flight entertainment
systems: one on Eva Air, and another on Virgin Atlantic. For people who
haven’t flown recently, I should explain that these systems consist of a
touch-sensitive TV monitor combined with a remote-control-sized controller.
The systems typically offer music, TV, movies, flight status, and video games.
I believe both systems were based on Linux. I saw the Eva system crash and
reboot, and the Virgin Air system has a number of Linux freeware games.
The
GUI frameworks were pretty weak – both systems made poor use of the touch
screen and had obvious graphical polish issues. The Virgin system was much
higher resolution, and was 16:9 aspect ratio. I expect it was running on
slightly higher-spec hardware.
Both systems worked pretty well for playing
music and watching TV or movies. The media controls were pretty limited -
neither system allowed seeking to a particular point in a movie, or even
reliably fast forwarding. Both systems provided enough media to entertain your
average customer for the duration of the flight.
One cool feature of the EVA
system was backwards compatibility mode with the older “channel” music system
from the 70’s. The controller came with the traditional “channel” UI. If you
used the channel buttons, the system simply acted like the old system, cycling
through a limited number of preset channels. One nice difference from the old
channel system is that these new virtual channels always started when you
switched to them, rather than having to join the looping presentation at
whatever point it happened to be in.
The game portions of both sysetems were
very weak. None of the games were very good. Perhaps the best game was a port
of the shareware Doom game on the Virgin Atlantic system. (I used an in-flight
entertainment system on Singapore Air many years ago that had Nintendo games.
It was more fun.)
The Virgin system allowed you to order food and drink, which
was nice. Both systems had credit card swipers, and offered some for-pay
options.
Both systems allowed you to make in-flight phone calls. EVA allowed
you to send SMS messages and emails. Both systems allowed you to create “play
lists” of music tracks that would then be played while you did other tasks. I
enjoyed this, but I suspect it’s not used much, as anyone with the
sophistication and interest to use this UI would probably have their own MP3
player.
The Virgin system had two other very nice features: 1) laptop power in
most seats (although only two plugs for every three seats), and 2) Ethernet
connections. Unfortunately the ethernet connections were not yet active.
Virgin allowed you to “chat” between seats. I didn’t try this, but it seems
like it would be fun for some situations (e.g. when a high school class takes
a trip.) I expect that the Doom game can play between seats as well, but
didn’t investigate.
Virgin also had normal mini stereo headphone plugs, which
I think was a good idea. Eva had two kinds of audio plug, but neither one was
the normal mini stereo plug. I tried using “Skull candy” noise-canceling
headphones with the Virgin system, and while they helped suppress the airplane
noise, they didn’t eliminate it completely.
It will be interesting to see how
these systems evolve over time. I think that once in-plane internet access
becomes practical people will prefer to surf the Internet to using most of the
other services. (besides movie watching) And with the in-seat power, I think
many people will prefer using their own laptop to the in-seat system. On the
other hand, the in-seat system is very space efficient. There’s a chance
people will use it as a remote display for their own laptop or mobile phone,
which could then remain tucked away in the carry-on luggage.
01 Jun 2008
Here’s a very long, quite good post on Nintendo’s strategy with the Wii:
http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html
The thesis is that the mainstream video game market arms race of every-more-
complicated games ended up overshooting enough of the potential game market to
allow an opening for simpler “down-market” games, and that Wii was able to
exploit this opening. The article predicts that Nintendo will now move up-
market, producing more complicated games over time, pushing PS3 and Xbox 360
into very up-market niches. Sort of how consoles took over from PC games.
14 May 2008
OS X is by and large a good OS, but once you get past the sexy UI you find a
lot of rough edges.
For example, this month I’ve been working remotely over a
flakey DSL connection. I ran into a very frustrating problem: if you’re using
a PPTP-based VPN, and your network connection is poor quality, the whole Apple
UI will frequently freeze up with the “Spinning beachball” cursor for minutes
at a time.
Luckily for me the work-around is to reboot my DSL modem. But it
seems like poor system design for the VPN packet performance to affect the UI
of non-networked applications.
14 May 2008
Another superb rant by Steve Yegge on dynamic languages:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html
The comment section’s good too – especially the long comment by Dan Weinreb
of Lisp / ITA software fame. Steve’s got the same problem some of my
self-taught friends do (hi Bob, hi Jim!): he’ll say something in a strongly
opinionated way, without
giving supporting evidence. I think that makes people think he doesn’t know
what he’s talking about. So people tend to write him off. But if you talk with
him, it almost always turns out his strong opinions are backed by some pretty
deep experience and insight. I’ve learned to give Steve (and my self-taught
friends) the benefit of the doubt.
18 Apr 2008
Check out this
teardown of a Sony OLED TV.
It looks like Sony has a
standardized architecture for their TVs, which makes sense, but which also
means that some TVs have unused capabilities (such as a multi-core CPU
powerful enough to run a web browser. I wish an enterprising hacker would
figure out how to download code and run them on the TVs – my understanding
from reading Sony’s GPL web site is that they already have Linux and busybox
installed. Oh well, maybe GPL 3.0 will force Sony to make their TVs user-
upgradable in the future.
It’s significant that Sony’s not using the Cell CPU
in their TVs. That was part of the justification for spending so much on Cell.
I assume this means that Cell’s just not cost-effective for TVs.
18 Apr 2008
Tom Forsyth, who recently left RAD to work at Intel on the Larrabee project,
has posted to his tech blog explaining that Larrabee is going to be primarily
a traditional OpenGL/DirectX rasterizer, not some crazy raytracer:
Larrabee and Raytracing
06 Apr 2008
Back in the ’90s I had a home page where I posted some of my code hacks and
articles. If you want to see what I was doing 10 years ago, check out:
Jack’s Hacks
(Mostly Java and Anime. Both
of which were leading-edge back then, but are kind of main-stream now.)
30 Mar 2008
Some notes on ThinLisp, a dialect of Lisp for real-time systems. Thin Lisp was
written by Gensym Corporation in the ’90s. The general idea is that you
develop your program using a subset of Common Lisp, and then compile it into
efficient C. Garbage collection is avoided by using object pools, arenas, and
similar tricks familiar to advanced C programmers.
The current home of
ThinLisp seems to be Vladimir Sedach’s Code
Page . Vladimir seems to have used
it for “one small OpenGL” project before abandoning it. He seems to be happily
hacking ParenScript (a Lisp to
Javascript translator) these days.
The Scheme guys have similar, but more
modest, sysems: Schelp, and PreScheme (part of
Scheme48).