

Plug: the brain of your devices - gawenr
http://meetplug.com/kickstarter/

======
samstokes
This seems like a very ambitious project, which is great. It does seem at risk
of boiling the ocean. They're taking on:

* NAS device with encrypted file storage and UPNP

* setting up a VPN

* client software for said VPN on each platform (or at least installers that can configure each platform's native VPN support)

* multi-device file sync

* _whole_ -device file sync, with client software for each platform, presumably with subtle kernel-level code (those "patent-pending technologies")

* versioned backup

* "instant file transfer" (presumably this is just their streaming tech repackaged, but it's a separate UX to develop and maintain)

* streaming file delivery across varying-bandwidth connections

* presumably media player apps on each mobile client platform to consume said streaming media

Each of those things is plausible, putting them together makes a lot of sense
at the product level, and it would be a godsend if they can do it well. I
guess I just wonder why they're not raising $5M rather than $100k.

(Maybe the team is actually an established company with 20 engineers, and the
Kickstarter is purely to bankroll the initial production run? It's not clear
from the team bio.)

~~~
tteam
All these are already done by our Tonido
([http://www.tonido.com](http://www.tonido.com)) and TonidoPlug project and it
is available and it works.

~~~
ricardobeat
If you allow me a humble suggestion as a customer, you should use this as
inspiration to rethink your product pages:

    
    
        the new, Ultimate low-power, low-cost home, small
        business server and NAS powered by Tonido platform
    

versus

    
    
        Plug makes your computer bigger.
        Make all your devices one.
    

These guys do have a slightly above healthy amount of fantasy in their copy,
but it's a much easier sale.

~~~
tteam
You are right. They have done a great job on the copy.

------
blhack
Yes. Store hundreds of movies and hundreds of thousands of pictures on plug
and access them anywhere![1]

[1]: So long as you have an absurdly fast internet connection at your house,
and also have an absurdly fast internet connection wherever you are that
you're trying to use this thing...and aren't on an airplane, or in the car, or
on a train...which is when you would generally want to watch movies on your
tablet.

~~~
pyre
On the other hand, store things on a 3rd party cloud storage provider that
will happily hand everything over to the NSA whenever they ask... If it's in
your home they don't have an easy interface to it, they have to physically
infiltrate your residence, which costs a lot more and, presumably, will
require more than a passing interest in you to happen.

~~~
tolmasky
Sure but then your hard drive fails (as they tend to do) and you lose all the
data. Sounds like the right solution is just encryption on the client + 3rd
party cloud storage.

~~~
DiabloD3
Except its easy to build RAID enclosures that are USB mass storage devices.
Plus, it replicates data across multiple Plugs in different location, and I
think the Plug software also shares data on your computer (which can be
RAIDed) through your private Plug network as well.

~~~
tjohns
RAID is _not_ a backup solution. If your filesystem is corrupted in software
(or you just mistype and delete something important), it will happily
replicate the damage across all of your drives.

Personally I feel recommending RAID to home users is generally a bad idea. It
gives a false sense of security.

~~~
DiabloD3
Depends on the file system implementation. Smarter RAID implementations, such
those integrated into ZFS, will not be easily taken down.

In addition, RAID does not require you to use local devices. I agree, however,
it is not a backup solution, and I did not claim it was. I merely stated RAID
is how you deal with drives dying and taking everything with it. Backups is
how you deal with RAIDs or entire locations dying, ergo, offsite backup.

And multiple Plug installations seems to cover the concurrent offsite sync
part of that.

------
Shish2k
"When Plug is installed on your computer, our application intercepts all the
input/output operations performed on your files, using several patent pending
technologies. When Mac OS X, Windows or Linux want to store or access data,
they ask our application instead of manipulating the hard drive."

They've patented FUSE now? Or is that NFS?

~~~
samstokes
FUSE wouldn't do what they claim to do. FUSE would let them create a Dropbox-
alike, i.e. a separate partition whose contents are synced to the Plug. Using
FUSE to intercept all I/O on _all_ files would require you to migrate your
entire directory structure to their FUSE filesystem; probably a rather
unfriendly setup procedure.

If their description is to be believed, they're presumably installing a kernel
module which hooks in above or below the filesystem layer, so it doesn't
require you to modify your existing filesystems.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That would be the "Translucent File System" from Sun, patent #5,313,646
([http://www.google.com/patents/US5313646](http://www.google.com/patents/US5313646)).
Back when Sun was building a new source code control system (code named
Avocet) they wanted a way to create a 'view' of the branch which included
stuff from NFS servers and stuff locally. The problem is subtly tricky in some
ways (creating 'whiteout' to delete a file which exists in one layer but not
the other).

Its a really handy thing, and I was very impressed with it in the mid '90s
when I was using it. Perhaps its time has come again?

~~~
prg318
A similar technique is also used in IBM's Rational ClearCase suite. It uses a
proprietary networked filesystem to provide a dynamic view to users. It was an
interesting attempt at a solution for version control and I'm sure that its in
use today.

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearcase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearcase)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I have a fuzzy memory of the folks at Rational licensing the entire source
code product from Sun at one point. I know some of the key engineers on it
went to work for Rational (this was all pre-IBM acquisition)

------
bhauer
This is very exciting because I feel this addresses one of the cornerstone
technology failures that keeps me from enjoying the computing model I want,
which I call PAO [1]. Namely, it deals with the failure of VPNs to evolve into
something that regular consumers can understand. Plug in this device, add a
hard drive, and access your data on your various computing devices from
anywhere on the Internet. VPNs have had the underlying capability to provide
that access to personal data, and those savvy enough to implement a personal
VPN server do so. I don't use cloud file servers because I can access my home
network's file server over an IPSec VPN from all of my devices. But what a
pain in the ass.

Most people defer the responsibility to manage their data to cloud vendors
because cloud vendors solve the key pain point (I need my data everywhere) at
the seemingly low cost of just losing control and some added friction. But the
alternatives where control is retained have classically been user interface
disasters. I imagine my mom setting up an IPSec/L2TP VPN--yeah, not happening.

Even as someone who does have the ability to set up a VPN, I am left with
routine annoyances associated with the abysmal user interfaces associated with
managing VPN connections.

Of course, in addition to this, to realize PAO, I still need an OS-level
application server concept with all my applications designed in a "responsive"
model servicing multiple concurrent views. But providing always-on plug-and-
play VPN connectivity and from-everywhere access to personal data is a leap
forward.

Thanks for your work on this, guys!

Such a device has the potential to render all traditional cloud storage
vendors obsolete, and I welcome that potential future.

[1] [http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao)

------
flexd
"Ever needed to send hundreds of pictures to a friend? With Plug, we invented
a technology to transfer files instantly. No matter their size, no matter
their number. That’s also part of our job to simplify storage."

How exactly are they planning to make that a reality?

Say I've been out filming with my GoPro and my friend wants the clips, or I've
taken some photographs with a DSLR (which are at least >5MB in size per
picture).

It can't be instant.

~~~
a3_nm
I suspect that by "transferring" the files they mean "transferring a token
allowing the recipient to access the files from your plug". From there, under
their (debatable) underlying assumption that accessing files from a plug from
your device is fast, it's as if the data has been transferred: recipient can
view the files on their device, except they're being fetched from your plug
(and maybe copied to their own plug in the background).

(Caution, this is just speculation.)

~~~
flexd
That was what I was thinking too, but it all depends on everyone having high-
speed internet.

Which will happen in the future, but at the moment there are lots of people
with <5Mbit connections, and preferably to be able to access your files like
they claim you with images and other medias you will need something like a
100Mbit or better connection anywhere you go.

How widespread is 4G connectivity in the world?

------
statenjason
Reminds me of the PogoPlug[1]. I came across it when buying a SheevaPlug, the
device it was originally built on.

[1]: [http://pogoplug.com/devices](http://pogoplug.com/devices)

~~~
muuck
Pogoplug is not a free service. I bought one thinking it was. They actually
cap the amount of data you can store. I believe it is 5GB for free.

Mine's running Arch Linux Arm now, with Open VPN, NFS, Samba and simple DLNA.
Much more useful! I just wish I could re-encode the stream to my iPad. Often
the video on my iPad refuses to playback proper.

------
pixie_
Can we have a discussion about marketing? Like how does this $60 niche product
raise $150k in 2 days? Was it hyped before hand? Did kickstarter hype it?
Anyone know the details behind their PR?

~~~
sylvinus
They are one of the most brilliant tech teams in France, and got at least a
good headstart there. Then they did Techcrunch, etc. The high quality
Kickstarter page & video certainly helped a lot too.

------
lectrick
I don't believe this project can accomplish all of what it claims it will.

Media streaming alone is an art and a science all in itself. There are various
formats, encoders, decoders, etc... This is why AirServer/AirVideo is its own
thing already... and I'm sure they're very busy.

[http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/](http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/)

And file sync plus version management? Resolving conflicts there is yet
another art all in itself.

It would be amazing if they could pull 50% of this off, and even at 50%, their
engineers have their work cut out for them BIGTIME.

~~~
sktrdie
This is just a Linux server running something like Samba [1] to share files
across your local network or the internet. Quite basic stuff. I've had this
setup at home for ages, using some old cheap laptops/computers.

You can actually replicate this on Windows or Mac natively. Just share a
folder.

Am I missing the exciting part?

\--

Edit: for crying out loud, my _media-center_ has a sharing functionality.
Which means my media-center does exactly what this Plug thing supposed to do,
without all the non-sense proprietary marketing shenanigans.

Wake up people. This tech has been around for ages!

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_\(software\))

~~~
lttlrck
You're missing a lot more than the exciting part. You need to wake up
yourself, go back and read it again then come back and tell us how to to all
that with samba (of all things).

------
RyanZAG
Oh wow, I feel so sorry for anybody who has backed this. The promises they
make are simply technically impossible on devices such as iPads and iPhones.
They also don't say they have actually done anything in that area either, only
that they have a prototype for Win/Linux/Mac desktop - probably an unpolished
clone of Dropbox.

~~~
gcr
See [http://www.tonido.com/](http://www.tonido.com/) . (Sidenote: tteam posted
this; is tteam affiliated with Plug? Is Tonido their previous project?)

What makes it impossible on iPads and iPhones?

~~~
ulyssesgrant
the way I see it, it's "impossible" because (for example) if you use plug to
keep your music in sync, it won't be viewable in iOS's music app, only through
whatever app plug puts together.

~~~
tantalor
What's so special about the iOS music app?

~~~
andyhmltn
Well, you have to use iTunes to sync music to it. A 3rd party app on the
device can't do that.

------
anExcitedBeast
Is it RAID configurable? Is the data encrypted at rest, and, if so, how? Will
it support two factor authentication? Will Plug ever "phone home" for any
reason or report any data (meta or otherwise) to anybody except the purchaser?
Will the software be open source, and if not how do we trust this device from
a security standpoint? Can Plug be used effectively as a NAS without the
syncing software?

I know it's difficult to tell, but I'm very excited about this.

------
peterhajas
I like how this image:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/719/044/5881e3534d86...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/719/044/5881e3534d86253c2e4545cde9727586_large.png?1372879330)

totally rips off the Sparrow icon:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparrow_icon.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparrow_icon.png)

------
joejohnson
I'd love to hear more about how this works on iOS. How does the Plug app have
access to files in the local filesystem outside of the Plug app's sandbox?

~~~
icesoldier
What I imagine for the mobile clients is that it would be a window to the
files in your Plug. You can stream whatever you like from your Plug with
internet access, and download whatever you have room to store for offline use.

------
state
I think this project has great ambition and tone. I like it, it seems good.

But — trust users to manage their own physical data? Forget it. It seems to me
that people don't just want their data accessible from everywhere, but they
want it to be kept in perpetuity. Considering the backup schemes I see among
even tech savvy friends: really, forget it. Those fussy WD Passports can't
compare to the reliability of Glacier. The cost of cloud storage is worth it.

There are a few workarounds I can imagine though, and I like where this is
headed overall, so: nice work!

~~~
otisfunkmeyer
When you combine this with Backblaze/Crashplan as they suggest multiple times,
you theoretically get the best of both worlds...

------
fps
I was piecing something like this together on my own with a laptop and a pile
of external hard drives, when I found my desk overrun by the little things.
They were too fragile and didn't stack well. I started looking around for a
shelf to hold external hard drives and do cable routing, when it hit me "oh
yeah, that's called a desktop computer." So I bought a nice computer case and
a relatively inexpensive motherboard/CPU combo and filled it with disks. Way
sturdier, and much faster. I'm not sure at all what I was thinking before with
that USB idea.

Using external hard drives as a semi-permanent storage array is not a good
solution. For an appliance, Drobo/Synology has the right idea here, and I
think this group is making a mistake by expecting people to build a disk array
out of a hub and USB drives.

~~~
j-kidd
I went through a similar phase trying to use an OpenWRT router plus external
hard drives for file sharing. The main problems are performance and
reliability. I can only get 20 MB/s read and 10 MB/s write using a decent
router with a decent processor (MIPS 74Kc). Plus, USB connection is much less
reliable and sometimes the drives would get disconnected.

From the kickstarter page, Plug can only do 30 Mb/s, which is ~4 MB/s and
likely not enough to stream Bluray ISO. A fast enough processor is essential
for NAS.

------
will118
I actually really like the idea, but the problems I would have are:

My current internet has awful upload speeds, but I've had fibre in the past
and many other people do/will.

So ruling that out, my other issue is surely my main PC has to be on? 99% of
my media (the only real use to me) is on it.

Wake on LAN was a given I thought. I didn't read anything and quick CTRL-F
finds nothing. It was quite hard to read through the spiel but if it's 2 years
in development; is WOL such a given they don't mention it or is there a reason
they're not doing it?

------
comex
Hmm. Plug will apparently retail for $150. If I look at the dual band 802.11n
router I have which happens to have a USB host port for NAS (which seems to be
common these days?), it's $87 on Amazon, and of course if you don't want the
router part you can get something for much less, or just use an existing
desktop if you don't mind the power bill.

Of course much of the value is in the convenience of setup and the full-
featured set of client software that they've developed. But $150 seems like a
huge markup.

~~~
rbellio
Looks like you can just download the client software for free and do the home
PC/Router approach without having to use a plug:
[http://www.tonido.com/tonidodesktop_pricing/](http://www.tonido.com/tonidodesktop_pricing/)

~~~
comex
That appears to be a different company.

~~~
rbellio
Ah, you are correct, I can see that tteam posted comments and made it clear
that they are not associated with the plug team.

------
Groxx
All possible, all been done before in smaller parts, all the UI is not simple,
all the side issues / polish are infinite, blah blah blah, it's all true. I
totally agree.

If it comes out and it's even half-way decent, I'd buy one. If it's decently
usable, I'd buy a few, and send them to friends and relatives. I'd _love_
these, and even with my meh internet connection it would easily keep up, and
I'd just have to buy an additional external hard drive every year or so.

------
chermanowicz
So, can someone from Plug explain what you're really trying to accomplish.

I'm already stuck at "They have one content, but multiple devices. So they
spend a lot of time just figuring out where are their documents. And they keep
moving their files to-and-from tiny Cloud folders. " It doesn't mean anything.

Is this private cloud storage with auto-syncing across all your devices? That
already exists, to the extent that it does just that, if you know what I mean.

------
postscapes1
I think the real implications of Plug or a similar system are actually in the
VRM vendor rights management and API's, not in the media play features.

We really need to wake up and realize that having all of our connected devices
reliant on 3rd party servers will not scale.

I want to see this device have babies with another crowdfunded project BRCK
[http://brck.com/](http://brck.com/) for backup connectivity, power, and mesh
networking.

------
JL2010
Very interesting hardware specs:

Embedded Linux (OpenWRT based)

x86 compatible processor

I'm curious as to why they didn't go with an arm-linux combination. In any
case, it sounds pretty well powered and I'm wondering if they'd ever allow 3rd
party app development for it as it would be cool to have a tiny embedded box
that takes care of the VPN aspect of connecting securely back to home. I'm
thinking home automation type stuff.

------
DannoHung
So it's a USB backed NAS with some custom software to manage sync on computers
and devices? Okay that actually sounds pretty good since NAS devices are
usually pretty expensive. When multiple disks are installed in the USB chain
does it manage the data so that a failure on a disk doesn't lose data? Will it
alert me if one of the disks went bad?

The Kickstarter mentions online backup solutions, but does it have any
integration with them?

------
akama
I think this is a very neat project and am looking forward to seeing how it
turns out. One thing I would like is the ability to have a software only
solution. I already have a NAS and have no desire to buy another USB. I get
why for simplicity reasons they are going with the hardware but I would love a
software version.

~~~
semenko
Take a look at OwnCloud [http://owncloud.org/](http://owncloud.org/) and
BitTorrent Sync:
[http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html](http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html)

------
coolnow
What does the average "30Mbps" mean in the specifications? Is that the max it
can write to a connected drive? Read speed from a drive? Average transfer
speed over the network? If yes to any of the above, then isn't this quite slow
for anything other than a few small pics and documents?

------
hex-
This seems like it could appeal to a lot of people right now. As seen by
DuckDuckGo's recent spike in use, a lot of "regular" internet users are more
concerned with privacy. People could use this as a "private" Dropbox that is
still easy to use.

------
capkutay
I would personally fear doing any product that tries to integrate all your
media for all your devices...especially because Apple and Samsung are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D working on the exact same thing.

~~~
pfranz
Fear what? Fear if that was your product or fear adopting their technology?

Apple and others (I'm not too familiar with what Samsung is doing) are
approaching this in a different way. They're going for the hosted server
approach and we've seen scaling issues. Another huge issue is the walled
garden.

I'm glad to see new guys like Dropbox gain a lot of traction and welcome
others.

My main concerns after seeing this are the integration (can they keep it all
these clients up to date and bug free or will my data be trapped behind a poor
client?) and drive failure.

------
lnanek2
Pretty dishonest. They claim you have to manually copy files to and from
DropBox, but I've always just used the auto-sync feature. The only files I
generate not in my DropBox are the ones in source control.

~~~
fnimick
I'm pretty sure they mean that you have to manually copy and store all your
files in the Dropbox folder, where with plug, any file anywhere on your PC
gets synced.

I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, but it's definitely different.

~~~
LogicX
This can already be accomplished with Dropbox just by symlinking...

------
visualphoenix
It's like git-annex ( [http://git-annex.branchable.com/](http://git-
annex.branchable.com/) ) on an embedded linux box with a different front-end
and ios support.

------
ancarda
So this essentially turns a flash drive into a NAS that's accessible over the
internet? I'd like to know how it's web-accessable. Is there a web server
built into the plug device?

~~~
voltagex_
Most likely. Couple that with uPNP and a dynamic DNS and it's web accessible.
The PogoPlug does it too (and yes, these seem to all be built off the
same/similar SoCs)

------
nickpresta
Awesome idea and it seems very ambitious. I wish it supported USB3 and gigabit
ethernet though, especially when you're talking about several Terabytes of
files and streaming movies, etc.

------
andyl
Looks like it draws energy from Ethernet to power the Plug Device and the USB
drive. Is that right?

Do consumer-grade routers/switches deliver power over ethernet?

~~~
Aldo_MX
It has a power adapter, I didn't read anything about PoE.

------
nakedrobot2
This is the kind of device for the lucky folks who have 1Gb/sec, such as
google fiber. I like the idea but it may be a few years too early.

------
zhuzhuor
I sincerely doubt how ease and stable a local (actually home-based) service
can be compared to cloud-based service.

------
ronaldsvilcins
So long as you live in Latvia, where we have an absurdly fast internet
connection ;)

------
schrodingersCat
Congratulations on your success! I'm rooting for you

------
benbeltran
Is that the sparrow logo in one of the screenshots? ...

~~~
peterhajas
Yeah, looks like they took it -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparrow_icon.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparrow_icon.png)

------
mrmondo
10/100 Ethernet?! What the? This is 2013...

------
melkisch
Best Kickstarter project I've seen so far!

------
etchalon
Umm … so it's a USB version of DropBox?

------
antoinec
Awesome project! Good luck!

------
everettForth
The "PRISM-free" bit is misleading and not even mentioned in the kickstarter.

~~~
comex
It is prominently mentioned near the bottom.

~~~
Shish2k

        > Ctrl-F
        > "PRISM"
        0 results

~~~
ancarda
Look for "Your storage is fast and private" (it's near the bottom). This image
is directly below the title:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/719/145/cd13e6df1821...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/719/145/cd13e6df182197433e374d3da2c7f65c_large.png)

------
cupcake-unicorn
"How is this different than Dropbox?"...Ok, you attempted to answer that. How
is this different than having a NAS, which can hold big TB hard drives, have
RAID, often run linux (mine is running cron, etc. to transfer files).

Just a few fancy apps and features? I just don't get how this is different
than any network storage on any network and how this is really all that
innovative at all.

