Kurobox Pro on the way?

[SUBMAN1]

http://www.kurobox.com/downloads/Kur...ifications.pdf

Not sure this is worth the upgrade. It is not much better than my Kurobox HG. I have 128 MB memory, I have a PowerPC CPU, and I am not sure I want this Marvell thing.

This is what the Kurobox HG looks like that I currently own:



If you don't know what a Kurobox is, think a tiny server. My Kurobox is my server at home actually. It draws a tiny 17 Watts of power, and has a relatively quiet 22 dba fan. They say it's 22 dba, but I am thinking it is more like closer to 30 dba, but it is still quiet and you can't really hear it unless you are in the same room as the box.

Most people would think it is simply a NAS (and mine defintely acts as a storage device with a full 500 GB HD online in 17 watts of housing!), but it is actually a full system minus a graphics card. I reflashed the BIOS to accept anything on the HD as a boot OS, using Netcat to hack into it. I got an install of Gentoo Linux running on it as an OS. Some services I have running include proftpd, Samba (for windows shares), and it acts as a media server with full transcoding capability. It's main use is to serve my Dlink DSM-520 media player (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=438) for video or ogg's or mp3's, etc. I have many services running, but those are some of the main ones that should give you an idea that you don't need a full power hungry system to do the same job.

File transfer is decent too. It has full Gigabit ethernet and I estimate it is maybe 2x as fast as 100 Base-T at best, but faster is better than nothing. GB ethernet in my opinion is not all its cracked up to be, but that is another story.

So this brings my to my question, considering that all I can find for an improvement is this faster CPU, you think the upgrade is worth it? I am not familiar with this Marvell CPU. Time to do some more research I would guess.

-S

PS. Looking at the spec, not too much different here, so I guess I'll pass. Here is the spec on mine for comparrison purposes:

What is the KuroBox?

The KuroBox is a small-footprint Linux-based embedded platform for a personal server.

The current incarnation of the KuroBox, the KuroBox/HG, sports a 266Mhz PowerPC processor, 128MB of RAM, 2 USB 2.0 Ports, and a 10/100/1000Mbit network interface.

The KuroBox comes without a hard drive, but can hold any standard IDE (parallel ATA, not SATA) 3.5" drive. The KuroBox runs on a Linux kernel, and has multiple options for actual distribution. Actually, any Linux distribution that supports PPC will work, but so far the community has ported over Gentoo, Debian, Fedora and Sylver's Distro (which is the current incarnation of the Kuro's original embedded distribution).

To give you a rough idea about the KuroBox/HG's power, it can transcode (decode and then re-encode to another bitrate) MP3's using LAME at about 25% faster than realtime. While not as fast as today's modern PC's, this is coming from a box that uses 17 Watts of juice. The tiny onboard fan (used to dissipate the hard drive's heat) is ultra-quiet at 22dB.

The KuroBox is not for the faint of heart -- there is no graphical installer, no "click here to launch your web server" button. However, if you know a little about Linux, or are willing to learn, the KuroBox is an excellent platform for a small space server.

More details on the current KuroBox can be found here (look for technical specs)

[Weigh-Man]

Are you on commision or something Subman?

Have to admit I have never heard of this piece of kit before

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Weigh-Man

Are you on commision or something Subman?

Have to admit I have never heard of this piece of kit before

Nope! Just swear by it. Most NAS devices are stupid and set up for one job only - to store files. This one is actually useful for more than simply storing files.

THis is the Media server I got crammed on it:

http://www.twonkyvision.de/Products/...dia/index.html

What other device are you going to be able to store your files, yet have no worries leaving it running with a total power consumption of 17 Watts, only have minimal noise output to the point I can't even here it is even a single PC is on in my computer room, is capable of being a primary server for your home with the capability to serve any service you want, and takes such a small footprint?

You can make this thing into a web server or an email server if you wanted.

Maybe I'm just sick a big noisey power hungry computers running 24/7 when a tiny box like this, barely bigger than a hard drive, can do the same job.

-S