Remember the days of Tivo? Well, hold on cause this is Tivo on steroids, plus a few more tricks to boot. The NSLU2 was introduced in 2004 by Linksys as a low cost network storage solution. The device as originally configured with the default firmware was designed to connect to up to two external usb storage devices, either hard drives or usb thumb drives. The unit was configurable through a web interface and was able to provide network storage to both windows, linux, etc. computers on a local area network.
As with many of Linksys' products, the NSLU2 was linux based and like it's sibling the famous WRT54G, an open source following began allowing customized firmware that enabled a multitude of applications to be run on it. There are several firmware that can be loaded on the NSLU2 or "slug" as it's affectionately known. More information can be obtained from www.nslu2-linux.org
My current usage of the NSLU2 is for file sharing ,broadcatching and torrent downloads. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why should I use this instead of a computer? Well, the power usage drawn by the NSLU2 itself is only ~11 watts, compared to a 350-450 watt computer. Also, I use the power provided by the NSLU2 ro power the external usb 2.5" hard drive(no external power necessary, as two ports are used for power) Therefore, it can remain on 24/7 and not increase your electricity bill much higher.
Okay, now because it draws less power than a computer there's a downside, speed. It's not as fast as a computer would be for downloading and processing multiple torrent and/or nzb download streams. However, because I have all of this automated for me, I'm not even around to care. The only times I notice any degredating in performance is on the rare occasion that I need to use files on the NSLU2 while it's processing/unraring content. Unraring is the most processor intensive and takes 9 or so minutes for a 400 meg file. Again, this is minimal(for me at least) and the time it saves me more than makes up for this. Also, you can schedule when downloading is allowed, so it can be done during off-peak viewing times according to your preferences.
There's two main applications I make use of for downloading, the first is SABnzbd+. The open source firmware I use for my NSLU2 is unslung and has a distribution available for SABnzbd+ and installed by simply issuing the command "ipkg install sabnzbdplus". This SABnzbd+ application allows you to define content you'd like to download as it's picked up by RSS feeds that you will define. The manual on www.sabnzbd.org explains how to set this up, all you need in addition to an internet connection is access to a reliable news server(NNTP). Another nice feature of SABnzbd+ is the ability to download content that has bookmarked in your newzbin account. This is a nice feature as if I'm not at home at find something I'd like downloaded I can simply bookmark it and have it waiting for me when I get home. SWEET!
The second application I use is torrential, a torrent client. This one took a little more work as I needed to recompile some programs for it to work nicely on the NSLU2. What's nice about using this instead of a computer is again the power consumption and heat aspect. Torrent download times are unpredictable and can take several hours(if you're lucky) to several weeks. With the torrents running on my NSLU2 I don't really care how long it takes as it just all happens in the background.
Now, all this downloading wouldn't mean a thing if I had to use a computer to view all this content. Uhh, yeah I like watching movies and tv shows on my 15" CRT(Yes, it's a CRT, but it works so I ain't replacing it yet). This is where my two xboxes loaded with XBMC come in. Now, since my content is loaded on a media server(NSLU2), I can view any of the tv shows or movies from the two locations. This is nice as sometimes I'm evicted from the living room and I can go the bedroom and continue off from where I stopped watching my show. Now more lugging around DVDs or the Tivo, or video tapes.
There's a lot more you can do with the NSLU2, these are just the usages I wanted it for. Keep in mind there is a limit to the memory in the NSLU2, 32mb, so you can't load too many applications. Also, the NSLU2 was discontinued in 2008 and Ebay would probably be your best bet to get one. I got my two this way.
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