I picked up an LG-NAS drive over a month ago and had been working to get it going just the way I wanted it. This being my first NAS drive, I now know a bit more about it than when I started. The main thing I’ve realized is: You get what you pay for. Don’t get me wrong, this sexy piece of techno-ware is loaded and I’m sure I’ll get a fair amount of use out of it, but due to financial constraints, I opted for a single drive. Can you say, “What’s the fucking point?” I did anticipate getting another drive later to make full use of the mirroring capabilities, but for now… I only have the one leg.
The other thing that I found, only after realizing what can be done with a NAS drive, is that this particular unit did not allow for any real service additions. Namely, I wanted to run Subsonic from it rather than from my server. So I went about looking for a way to hack it. What I found was that somebody, much more capable than I, had developed their own firmware that allowed, among other things, the ability to root the drive. This gave me the ability to dig into the linux OS and start tweaking in preparation to install Subsonic directly.
However, since my programming skills are sub-par, I’ve been struggling with getting Subsonic to run as a service on the NAS drive. In addition, I was thrown a few overseas engagements that took me away for a few weeks. My time became backed up like after I ate those two packages of bit-o-honey and a bag of gummi bears (don’t try that at home). Now that I am back… I can dig in. I’m still learning all that can be done with a NAS drive, but ultimately I’m using it to keep a back up of all my important files through the native sync software that came with it.
Once I get Subsonic up and running, I will re-visit this post.
