using joggler as a NAS & PrintServer

[asantaga]

Hi all,

Just thinking of reviving my joggler and re purposing it as a NAS/Print Server and DNLA Server for my Xbox360.. so .

Im thinking it should work, obviously it will need a USB2 Hub to hold the hard disk & printer.. but some questions come up

1. Anyone done this??
2. Considering the joggler only has a 10/100Mbs network card, what performance as a NAS do you get?
3. Should I use the StockOS+Pnp2?
4. or is it better still use ubuntu/Mint?
5. How do we get the joggler to boot from the Disk/Memory stick holding the OS? or is it automagic?
6. Any recommendations on NAS Mgmt software/DNLA? Im currently thinking of miniDNLA as its designed for a nas (DLinks)

thanks

[BuZz]

2. Considering the joggler only has a 10/100Mbs network card, what performance as a NAS do you get?
3. Should I use the StockOS+Pnp2?
4. or is it better still use ubuntu/Mint?
5. How do we get the joggler to boot from the Disk/Memory stick holding the OS? or is it automagic?
6. Any recommendations on NAS Mgmt software/DNLA? Im currently thinking of miniDNLA as its designed for a nas (DLinks)

joggler has gigabit network card - your speed however will be limited by other IO stuff like usb speed for disk access.
I would think something like xubuntu / mint would be more flexbile than stock os. joggler should boot automatically from usb stick

[Mevi]

I have a Joggler cabled to my 100mbit sky router that serves up iTunes music sharing & TVersity media sharing 24/7 - running on a 2.5" external HDD & my XP Build 3. Music streams fine on the various iDevices and on the kids XBOX 360. If I'm using Boxee on my htpc, the TVersity server is seen and video buffers and streams OK.

Video playback using windows media player which sees the TVersity server doesn't seem to want to play nicely - the video doesn't seem to buffer causing it to stutter.

Anyway, the joggler is up to the task and it's just down to your choice of OS and what devices/software you plan to stream to.

[camberwell]

Hi

I had the joggler running xunbuntu working as a nas for streaming 1080p movies to xbmc using samba. I also had a sabnzb/sickbeard/couchpotato install working good running 24/7. The OS was on a old 60gb laptop drive and the movies were stored on a 2TB external hard drive.

It was through a 100Mb router, movies streamed perfectly. Copying from my main computer was about 8MB/s.

[samjam]

I used my joggler running ubuntu as a NAS for around a year. For me the limiting factor was an old USB hub. A newer hub or directly connected HDD was better.

[asantaga]

thanks all,

Duh, I always thought the joggler had a 10/100 net port but didn't realise it was gigabit.. ok yeah I'll be limited by USB2 I guess.

thanks all again

[gegs]

Hi all,

Just thinking of reviving my joggler and re purposing it as a NAS/Print Server and DNLA Server for my Xbox360.. so .

Im thinking it should work, obviously it will need a USB2 Hub to hold the hard disk & printer.. but some questions come up

1. Anyone done this??
2. Considering the joggler only has a 10/100Mbs network card, what performance as a NAS do you get?
3. Should I use the StockOS+Pnp2?
4. or is it better still use ubuntu/Mint?
5. How do we get the joggler to boot from the Disk/Memory stick holding the OS? or is it automagic?
6. Any recommendations on NAS Mgmt software/DNLA? Im currently thinking of miniDNLA as its designed for a nas (DLinks)

thanks

To answer your questions in order:

1. I use the Joggler as a NAS to an Apple TV and Xbox 360. I haven't used it as a print server because I have a wi-fi printer.

2. Performance is good but I haven't streamed full 1080p content because my plasma TV is only 720p.

3. No. Use one of the linux distros. I installed it to the HD, created a partition for media files (I chose FAT 32 because it's compatible with more of my devices), set up my media partition as a samba share and my Xbox 360 automatically found it.

4. Answered above.

5. To install to HDD, go through the process of writing the distro image to a USB stick but just before hitting the "write" button, remove the USB stick (pull it out - don't "safely remove" it) and insert the HDD. Just make sure that the HDD and USB stick are assigned the same drive letter by the system; this won't work if the USB stick mounts as drive G and your HDD always mounts as drive Z. Now hit "write". The image will be written to the HDD (I use an ext4 image because it is better for disk based devices). You can resize the partitions using a GParted live CD and create a media partition in the unallocated space.

6. I just use samba on the Joggler. It works pretty well.

Some file types don't play on the Xbox 360 but I mainly access files from my Apple TV 2 using either Firecore's Media Player or XBMC, both of which support a greater variety of file types. You need to jailbreak the ATV2 before using these apps.

You could probably run the OS on a USB stick and have the HDD with a single media partiton set as a samba share. I didn't see the point though; when I had the HDD attached to the hub it was as well to boot from the device.

[asantaga]

Thanks gegs.

Just took a break from work and tried this out.. setup was :

1. USB 2.0 Hub
2. Freecom Memory Stick (I put the OS on the stick)
3. WesternDigital 500GB External Powered drive) , already with movies on it etc
4. 100MBs Switch, dont have a gigaswitch handy installed samba, configured it and tried it out

Results
1. ssh transfers (winSCP) , seamed to be around the 8MBs (MegaBytes)
2. Windows SMB transfers are around the 12MB/s

Haven't tried any DNLA media servers yet, twonky server is my favourite thou but costs ££(not much tho), and miniDNLA is apparently really good..

The only issue I found was that my external (NTFS) drive wasnt automounted (need to do that) and as its NTFS I noticed issues with permissions.. Im probably going to reformat it as ext3 as ext3 drivers on windows are more stable.. Last I read decent ext4 drivers were short in supply.. but that might have changed.

Thanks all

[gegs]

What is the benefit of miniDNLA over straightforward samba share access? As far as I'm aware, miniDNLA doesn't transcode files so the Xbox 360 would only be able to play the same file types as it would from a samba share.

Of course you may want to serve to other devices but my reply concerns your desire to us the Joggler as a "DNLA Server for my Xbox360" as per your original post. I do this already and don't run any DNLA server software.

---- EDIT ----

Despite numerous duplications of the same typo, it's actually MiniDLNA (not DNLA).

[asantaga]

gregs

I think the benefit of DLNA (correctly spelt!) is that it indexs all the material and gives artwork etc to various devices.. admittedly your right whats wrong with Samba?

Checkout www.tvmobli.com, they offer a DLNA server which will use VLC and do local transcoding!, but I havent tried it..

On a different note, I've followed people's advice and installed the ext4 version to my 2TB harddisk (using the hot swap method..).. However one thing I've noticed is that sometimes when the joggler is turned on it doesnt boot.. if I reboot (power off/on/off) then it does.. any hints?

[asantaga]

Just as an add on for others , I've managed to get this all working quite well actually. Transfer rates are approx 12MB/s on a 10/100 network..
Some notes
1. I used xubuntu instead of ubuntu. Mainly for memory reasons (gnome is quite heavy) but the negative is that its missing a number of gui apps , e.g. gparted etc. Not a problem almost all of them can be installed using the apt-get command
2. Plug in a USB keyboard/mouse into the USB hub, makes the initial bit easier
3. Install ssh server so you can remotely connect using putty/ssh etc
4. Install VINO , this allows you the ability to remotely control the jogglers screen,
http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_6980234_enabl ... sktop.html

From now onwards you can disconnect the keyboard/mouse and either use putty or a VNC client to VINO

5. Install Samba, so you can share files & printers . WebMin has some admin features for Samba..
6. Install webmin (www.webmin.com) , this allows the ability to remotely manage the linux side of things using a webinterface.
7. Install your favourite dlna server

away you go..

Im toying with the idea of creating a cutdown image of the xubuntu image, but I think the instructions arent complex..

[kazan]

Hello,

I'm using my joggler (buzz's Ubuntu Ext4 version) as NAS since long time. Not only as NAS(samba & NFS) but as well as Squeezeplay, DLNA server(servivo), FTP server etc. (no PrintServer). I've got everything on Gbit network at home and transfers which I've got are reaching max of USB port in joggler.
Everything works great...well until recently when I've started having some problems while copping from/to Samba shares. Joggler just keeps freezing and only hard restart helps. So I need to reinstall Ubuntu (buzz's verison) and that's a little bit tricky because of my setup.
I've got 640GB HDD with 3 partitions (system, storage, swap). Now if I want to reinstall system I need to move more than 500GB of data from storage partition somewhere else for time of re-installation. It's not convenient but fortunately this happen really rarely.
Maybe you know, is there any way just to reinstall system strait to system partition without moving data from storage partition? I've tried to do it but without success
I'm thinking to get USB memory stick and mount it inside of joggler just for system but then it'll not be so fast as HDD.

Thanks,
|Kazan|

[asantaga]

Hey Kazan, thanks for the reply.. Interestingly I actually put the OS on a USB Stick mainly so that the hard disk would have a chance to spin down..
It also means that I can image the stick as a backup.. just in case it got corrupted..

[inzimam]

hi guys

Would this work using an XP setup?

I'm not really familiar with Linux. I've had Android on one of my jogglers using as a photo frame but to be honest I rather use the joggler as a NAS.

My questions:

1) Would an XP installation work?>
2)Will the joggler be able to stay turned on 24/7?
3) Wake on LAN (this might be prohibited by SKY broadband router
4) Does the screen turn off?

[asantaga]

1) Would an XP installation work?>
Sure, dont see why not, its just a different OS..
- WinXP supports "windows" SMB shares (duh!)
- Lots of DLNA servers exist, e.g. tiversity, Zune Server (ideal for xbox360) etc
- CygWin supports SSH nicely, or use native windows remote desktop (RDP) or anything else
2)Will the joggler be able to stay turned on 24/7?
- Sure, mine running linux is...
3) Wake on LAN (this might be prohibited by SKY broadband router
- mmmm not sure about this one, I think that needs to be installed/configured at the bios level.. never tried it, but I wouldnt worry about it.. The atom processor already slows down when there's no load, and windows XP will respect that.. Also it only uses 10-16W of power so id leave it..
4) Does the screen turn off?
- mmm not tried it on the joggler but you could set a screen saver to "dim" the screen, it works on laptops might work on the joggler..

Seriously I used to have a WinXP Dell GX260 PC running as my server..

[inzimam]

Thanks for this, I need to do a lot more reading to figure this one out though.

Specifically, my TV is not DLNA compatible, and the new TV I was planning on getting is a Samsung LED which apparently has issues playing MKV via DLNA. I therefore need to find a solution of wiring the Joggler to an external powered drive and sumultaneously linking that to the TV

Ideally I'd like to use a media centre remote with the joggler to get things running nicely.

How to video out from the joggler is the question.