A Netbook as a NAS/PS/etc all-in-one?

[Pengwuino]

A Netbook as a NAS/PS/etc all-in-one??

So I was thinking something just now! Print servers are expensive if you want to attach a printer to a network. Getting built in network support is even more expensive. Same thing for network attached storage. However, I just realized, aren't netbooks like, the simplest way to combine anything like that? Just as long as the netbook is online, it can act like all sorts of fancy gadgets!

Or can it? I can get used netbooks for less than $200 from friends who go through netbooks somewhat often. Does anyone know or have any ideas about making such a device into a kind of all-in-one server? Sure you would have to have all your equipment near the netbook but that's kind of the situation I'm in at the moment with my parent's office. I wonder what other ideas I could spark out of this?

DISCUSS!

 

[KrisOhn]

You could just get a router with a USB port to connect it to your network (http://www.dlink.ca/products/?pid=530) I can recommend this product from using it for a few years, having a printer hooked up the way I described.

And I wouldn't recommend making a netbook your network attached storage, in my experience, netbook hard drives are small and typically spin at a lower RPM to save battery. If you want cheap network storage, pick up a couple of terabyte drives (they only cost about $100 now) and just share the entire drive over your network.

 

[Pengwuino]

No no, i mean doing what you suggested. I would buy a 2tb external HDD or something and attach it to the netbook via USB and probably just map it as a network drive or something similar.

 

[KrisOhn]

The problem I have with that is that with the USB connection, you're being severely limited in your transfer speeds (Note: this would really only apply if you have a gigabit network and have a wired connection to the netbook), to get the best speeds, the drive would need to use the internal SATA connection on a desktop PC. Another thing is that external drives are much, much more expensive than internal drives, and if you're going to get a 2TB external drive (1tb here http://ncix.com/products/?sku=52473&vpn=WDBAAU0010HBK-NESN&manufacture=Western Digital WD Retail) you might as well just get a full out 2TB NAS and grab better speeds and reliability (typically with these NAS' you can set them up in a RAID array if you want) (http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50186&vpn=LS-WX2.0TL/R1&manufacture=Buffalo).

The router I suggested retails for about $80 and it supports a gigabit network.