

Ask HN: Small, cheap server? - theophilus

I'm working on a free culture project that will place small wifi servers at various high traffic places and allow people to upload/download content anonymously. I'm looking for a device that runs linux, supports a standard disk drive, and can act as a wifi access point. Any suggestions?
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oldgregg
Check out <http://plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/CloudPlug>

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blacksmythe
See also //http:www.tonidoplug.com

Looks like the same part under a different manufacturing label.

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drinian
These are all rebranded versions of the SheevaPlug and GuruPlug, manufactured
by Marvell. So, if you're looking to write your own software stack on top,
just buy from Marvell...
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/SheevaPlug>

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dman
Are you looking for a prebuilt solution or are you willing to fab your own ?
Here are a few things you could look at a)
<http://www.compulab.co.il/t3530/html/t3530-cm-datasheet.htm> b) the gumstix
modules c) nxp has some devkits d) hack the sheeva plug to do what you want.

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blacksmythe
I have never used this part, but it is cheap, and supposedly supported by the
OpenWRT project.

<http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=8el2DcrRjLoHNdQ8>

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rbancroft
soekris has some interesting stuff. I'm not sure what kind of processing power
you would need, they are low power 486/586 class processors. you could get
something like the net5501 (<http://www.soekris.com/net5501.htm>) with a case
that has room for a 2.5" SATA drive and 1 PCI slot that you could use for a
wifi card. I've only seen them used with BSD but there is documentation out
there that explains how to get linux working on them.

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giannis
<http://www.ubnt.com/rspro> or <http://pcengines.ch/alix.htm>

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beastman82
You could save on the disk drive and set up a PXE over HTTP boot
configuration, then keep any data on the cloud. Just a thought

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datums
Linksys wrt54g(dd-wrt) + s3

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narrator
Some micro pc that can run DD-WRT would probably be ideal.

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codemechanic
I would suggest TonidoPlug. It supports webdav and has a web based file server
as well that allows people to upload and download from a browser

