Yes, new gadget! I got myself a Western Digital My Book World edition (White Edition), and man I love this little box of fun!

It’s running GNU/Linux stripped down edition (which by the way is GPL and can be downloaded here), it’s got a 1TB Western Digital hard drive, 1 Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mb  and a USB 2.0 connection.

I have been working on and off for some time now to set up a new server with some old spare parts I got from work, but as always with old hardware it’s slow, not a 100% compatible with GNU/Linux and the cabinet is too big and bulky to place anywhere, also, it’s usually pretty noisy, either with the CPU fan acting as a small air-plane or the BIOS fan being slightly off, which makes the whole cabinet vibrate (personal experience ™).

Here’s what made me decide on buying one:

Torrent client - Check! – The box runs Transmission perfectly and download speeds are very good. There are also hacks enabling RSS feed downloading, which makes it perfect for getting TV-Shows as soon as they are available.

Media server system – Check! – This box has a system called Twonkyvision running, which enables it to be discovered on our Popcorn hour A-110 with no problems! All our media is displayed directly and streaming works flawless (all tough I have not tried HD-Content yet, but I kind of doubt it would be any problem). This system also support iTunes, which makes it possible to stream all our music to our machines directly.

Access to GNU/Linux shell - Check! – This box doesn’t only allow you to access the shell, it seems they even encourage it. In the advanced settings on the web interface, you’re allowed to enable SSH access, and you are given the root password. You are also able to compile applications with gcc (all tough pre-installed gcc was removed in the latest firmware, it’s still available to install).

Basically, this device is just as good as any old server. I have also later found out that I can do the following with this box:

CUPS – Enables the NAS to serve as a printer server for the local network.

Net-SNMP - Makes it possible to poll the box for any info you would like to graph into ex. MRTG or RRDTool. This makes monitoring the device load, memory, temperature, disk size etc. incredibly easy.

vsftpd – FTP server support for transferring files super fast to and from the device.

rsync – Ability to run as a rsync server, which enables it to receive backups and incremental backups from other machines and keep everything up to date.

Now, when I first got it, I had a bit of a problem. At home in our current appartement, we don’t have any Internet connection, not directly into our apartment anway, but we share a wireless connection with our neighbours. This works all well when we have computers that have WLAN, but when I get a device that requires cable, It gets a bit difficult.

So I decided to set the box up like this:

Western digital My book connects to a 10/100Mbit switch I have. This switch is then connected to my computer by regular Cat5 cable. In my computer I set up NAT routing the traffic from eth0 (the wired network) to wlan0 (the wireless network). This makes it possible for the My book to download torrents, update firmware etc. etc. If anyone would be interested in the setup needed, I’d be glad to share it.

I might be posting more about this device later, as I’m no doubt going to be hacking and tweaking away at it until I’m a 100% satisfied.

All in all, this is a fantastic device, and so far I’ve had no problems with it. Sure, some might show up, but that’s usually due to me being a bit too curious on how things work ;)