back to article Synology USB Station 2

Network storage is a ‘good thing’ in the same way as a Big Top; great as long as you don’t have to set it up. Selling Nas boxes to consumers needs the hassle taken out of the installation – and what if you already have a drive you’re not using? Synology’s USB 2 Station aims to ease both problems. Synology USB Station 2 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

    FreeAgent Dockstar

    Does anybody know if the FreeAgent Dockstar (referenced in the article) supports USB printing? If so it would be right for me...

    1. Ammaross Danan
      Coat

      USB Network Printservers

      There are plenty of USB Network Printeservers out there for 50$ or so. Be careful, because many cheapo printers require the computer to run the printing so the printserver would be inadequate (think of WinTel modems of yester-year and why they wouldn't work in Linux).

      However, the Belkin F5L009 seems a much better solution than this crappy hardware. 5 USB ports and they can be independantly used by network PCs as if the USB device had been plugged directly into the computer. I actually use one of these Belkins for USB modems for a couple VMs. Gotta love being able to virtualize a server that requires a modem, and still retain VMotion and the like. :)

  2. Jim 59

    Speed

    " ...if it’s connected to a gigabit network, data throughput will be governed by the speed of the USB 2 connection, usually a lot less than the 480Mbps maximum"

    Most domestic nas devices are limited by the speed of the often feeble CPU in the NAS. At least that's the case with my Linkstation Live.

  3. Peter Hawkins
    Thumb Down

    Wot no wireless ????????????

    The lack of wireless connectivity makes this a non starter for most users.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      wireless

      presumably, you already have a wireless router, just connect the Ethernet cable from this to your router and the drive is available over wireless.

      Having a NAS system communicating wirelessly with your router, and then wirelessly from your router to your pc/laptop would severely impact it's transfer speed.

      1. Peter Hawkins

        Wot no wireless part 2...

        Yes most people will have a wireless router, however this device is also a print server. Most routers are where the phone line terminates, most printers are on a desk somewhere else, maybe next to a wireless PC if the house isn't wired with CAT5/6. Given that this has to sit beside the printer for it's USB connection wirelss would have extremely useful to save having to use a PC as a print server. This isn't a NAS device only, it would seem to be most useful serving portable devices for combined NAS/print.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Non-starter" is a bit strong.

      Just needs a wireless bridge sat next to it. But, yes, it would have made a lot of sense. Except the comments about speed would have applied forty-fold.

  4. bigjokerfish

    Hard drive stack

    I've got a pile of about 7 1tb hard drives, anyone know if this will actually support more than 2 hard drives?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      Do you really have trouble counting all the way to seven?

      [some letters]

      1. Ammaross Danan
        FAIL

        @AC

        Apparently, you missed the mention of manufacturer recommending USB hubs to extend the capacity >2.

        /fail troll

  5. Chris 171
    Boffin

    All I need is......

    An easy way too hook up to my LAN to a capacious external drive that I use for streaming music/flicks/films to my PS3 & laptops at a non laggy speed, without having my desktop PC running?

    Not in the slightest bit interested in remote printing.

    Any chance of buyers guide on all the available adaptor options like this? leaving aside the fact that a big a55 NAS box can always do more?

    The Pogoplug seems to fit my bill right now (despite the pink) and the USBS2 looks OK too but why is it not much easier already? Many other semi tech savvy people must be in a similar position to me?

    #justmakeitwork!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    What kind of network connector is that?

    On the rear picture on the 1st page, it has a LAN connector I haven't seen before. 12 pins...

  7. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Lack of zero-copy support

    "Most domestic nas devices are limited by the speed of the often feeble CPU in the NAS. At least that's the case with my Linkstation Live."

    Well, not specifically the CPU -- I had a 90mhz Pentium file server that'd EASILY max out a 100mbps ethernet, with plenty of cycles to spare. The problem is, some of these NAS systems don't have a DMA engine. Linux has had a sendfile() call since kernel 2.2 that can read some amount of a file, and copy that data DIRECTLY from the hard drive buffer to the network card buffer with almost no CPU involvement (this is zero-copy by 2.4 kernel -- where the ethernet card can calculate the checksum automatically). This HUGELY cuts CPU usage of this type of operation (it's been a long time but my recollection was it cut CPU usage from above 60% to well below 10%). But crazily some of the NASes don't have this (approximately $1) chip even though it's meant so speed up exactly what they burn most of their CPU cycles doing.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like