Adding a DriveStation to a LinkStation

[Petdog]

I'm running SlimServer on a LinkStation (160 GB) (thanks Marc Field!). Unfortunately, I've run out of space.

I'd like to simply add a large DriveStation (400 GB?; much cheaper than a new NAS) to the LinkStation and move all of my music files over there, leaving me plenty of room to add more music.

- Has anyone tried doing this?
- Can you point SlimServer to a folder on the DriveStation?
- Anything else I should take into consideration?

Thanks in advance,

Dan

[jmr]

Sorry i don't have ansver to your question, but id like to know how linkstation has worked as slimserver? My squeezebox should be arriving today or tomorrow and i'm thinking about buying a linkstation.

[aubuti]

I haven't tried it yet with my LinkStation, but my understanding is that yes, you can attach pretty much any external USB drive (including DriveStations) to a LinkStation to expand the storage. As I understand it the main catch is that because of the way the external USB drive has to be formatted, it will then only work when connected to the LS. That is, you can't connect it to the LS, then try to connect it directly to your computer's USB port. At least that's what it says in the LinkStation HD-HGLAN (aka gigabit) manual.

I think the external USB drive just shows up as a directory on the LS, so it should be no problem to point slimserver to it.

This is just my reading of the manual, I haven't tried it myself.

Re jmr's question, I've been very happy running slimserver on a LinkStation. Small size, low power consumption, and reasonable price were all big factors for me. It does take a while to rescan the library, and the web interface is a little sluggish, but those are minor inconveniences for me. In addition to the LinkStation, you might want to consider a KuroBox, or one of the NAS devices that has vendor support for slimserver (qnap, synology, infrant).

[dick]

Yes, this is possible and I am doing exactly the same thing by adding a 250Mb DriveStation to my 250Mb LinkStation. I've got everything ready to go but I'vr not got round to doing it yet. Having said that, I have tested the principal with a 30Mb USB hard disk and it worked just fine. I was initially concerned the transfer rate might be compromised but there was no problems in playing flac files.

To set it up you need to:
* connect the drive to the rear USB socket
* use Buffalo's web interface to format the drive
* create a link from your LinkStation's music directory to the DriveStation

As mentioned previously, you will not be able to use the DriveStation on another PC without reformatting it first.

[Petdog]

Dick--how do you "create a link from your LinkStation's music directory to the DriveStation"?

Aubuti and Dick--thanks for your guidance.

jmr--I sent you an expansive private message on my experience with the LinkStation. Figured it was better than clogging up the forum. Just FYI, in case you haven't checked messages.

[dick]

That's a very good question but I can't quite remember EXACTLY how it's done. However, in principal the link you create acts like a shortcut does in Windows and simply points to another directory. Do a search in these forums for playing tracks from different directories and look at the following link for the Linux command:
http://www.ss64.com/bash/ln.html

The way I've currently set up my LinkStation is that I have flac, mp3 and wma files arranged in separate directories. SlimServer is set to look at the top level of the flac directory...
//mnt/hda/share/flac
...so within there I have created 2 links (or shortcuts) to the other 2 directories...
ln /mnt/hda/share/mp3
ln /mnt/hda/share/wma

To then do the same for a connected DriveStation you would create the following link...
ln /mnt/hda/usb0/music_directory (or something like that).

Please bear in mind that these paths may be incorrect and, since I am currently at work, am not able to check it. I will try and look at this in more detail tonight and post out a correction.

In fact I should actually pull my finger out and set this up as my DriveStation has been sitting in it's box since March! Now that the "Disk Full" LED has come on the LinkStation I've no excuse.

[Petdog]

Dick--I know I started this thread off with the idea of adding a drivestation, but why did you choose a drivestation instead of a cheaper external drive? I hope you set it up soon--my light just came on, and I'd love to hear a full report on your experience :-)

I also searched the forums and this was the simplest thread explaining how to set up links (great for total noobs like me):

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=15637&highlight=symlinks

[dick]

Why Buffalo? Well, the LinkStation has been totally reliable, so I thought it better to go with what I know. Also consistency in appearance played a bigger factor than I'm willing to admit.

The good news is that I'm doing a half day today AND I've put a note in Outlook to remind me to sort this out so watch this space...

[dick]

OK here we go.

I'm writing this post as I go along and I have just powered up the DriveStation and connected it to the rear USB port of the LinkStation. The power mode selector switch is set to Auto.

From your PC connect to the LinkStation via the Buffalo web interface, go to Maintenance > Disk format and select USB Disk 1 from the drop-down box. Confirm the format - it took 8 mins for a 250Gb disk. Follow any on-screen instructions.

Go to USB Setup > USB Disk Setup and enable it as a shared folder.

Connect to the LinkStation using your preferred Telnet or SSH method. The DriveStation is at the following location:
/mnt/usbdisk1

In my case my mp3 files are at /mnt/hda/share/mp3 so to move them from the LinkStation to the DiskStation I used the following command:
mv /mnt/hda/share/mp3 /mnt/usbdisk1

Incidentally, it's a good deal quicker using Linux to do this; <20 mins to transfer 7.3Gb compared to an estimated 48 minutes using Windows.

My mp3 files are now at their new location /mnt/usbdisk1/mp3

Next thing to do is to ensure SlimServer can see this new location (you need to be logged in as root to do this bit). Change directory to what you have defined as your music folder (in my case it's /mnt/hda/share so I used cd /mnt/hda/share) and then create a link with the following command:
ln -s /mnt/usbdisk1/mp3

That's it!

[aubuti]

Pardon me for jumping in here, but I was curious Dick: what method did you use to open/hack your LS? When I used FreeLink to install Debian on my LS I hadn't considered that I'd likely lose the option to add a USB drive via Buffalo's proprietary format (because FreeLink blows away all of Buffalo's management screens and utilities). Oh well,if that's the case I suppose I could always reflash with OpenLink or the official firmware if I decided the pluses of doing so outweighed the minuses.

And in case I ever go that route, thanks for posting the how-to.

[dick]

I took the OpenLink road as directed by the (now legendary) Marc Field guide. As as linux noob (perhaps 1 too many "o"'s there ;)) I just wanted a simple conversion as possible and thought it was a good way to go.

I don't really know what more benefits a Debian install would have given me as all I wanted was a low-power stand-alone SlimServer-based music archive.

[aubuti]

Thanks for the info. I started with OpenLink for exactly the same reasons, and went to Debian (FreeLink) mostly for the ease of installing new packages, especially via apt-get.

[Petdog]

Thanks Dick! I'm going to give it a try myself.

[Michaelwagner]

So I have this brand new Gigabit linkstation - the HG ones, with 300GB (a little under, actually, but who'se counting?).

I'm following along in various places about how to hack it, and they all say I need telnet access. But as far as I can tell, telnet access isn't available on this box (or I haven't found where to enable it).

I gather that if I flash it with openlink I'll get telnet access, but I'm hesitant to go there blindly. So I thought I'd ask. Am I headed in the right direction?

2nd question: there's lots of stuff about how to "fix" the root password. But when I use the web interface, I sign in as root with no password. Are there 2 password files (I last used *nix shortly after the flood and certainly before web servers) or does the web server use the same /etc/password file? If so, I don't need to do anything, because I already know there is no password on root (kind of an odd thing, though...).

[dick]

OK, this is where my knowledge gets a bit sketchy...

As far as I can remember flashing the firmware with OpenLink will give you telnet access (in addition to SSH with is more secure). It is designed to retain all the original LinkStation functions but with added bits. This suggests you can always re-flash the original firmware from the supplied CD-ROM.

Although Windows includes a telnet client it sends 2 carriage returns for each carriage return keypress. You will therefore need to use a different that can be re-configured (I use PuTTY).

I don't quite understand the root account thing myself as the password I have set up for the Buffalo web interface is blank (like yours) but the root account via telnet does have a password. I don't remember having to do that cgi hack though.

[Michaelwagner]

I did some more experimenting, and there does seem to be 2 sets of IDs, one for Linux itself and one for the web server.

I tried adding root as a new user of the box and it objected and told me root was special. No surprise there, I guess. But I thought I'd try :-)

I guess I'm going to have to take the plunge and flash it. It's just that the web site contains such dire warnings, don't use a firewall, don't even use a router, hardwire it to your PC, don't sneeze or cross your toes while flashing, etc. A bit off-putting.

Most modern flash images are segmented so that a bad flash won't loose you the ability to reflash. I gather that's not been done with the linkstation. Even not for hackers that would have been a good idea.

[aubuti]

I guess I'm going to have to take the plunge and flash it. It's just that the web site contains such dire warnings, don't use a firewall, don't even use a router, hardwire it to your PC, don't sneeze or cross your toes while flashing, etc. A bit off-putting.
I hear you. But it does work, and in my opinion it's worth it. The main thing is to follow the directions step-by-step, and if something doesn't go quite right, resist the urge to "just wing it." Instead post back for help. The forums at linkstationwiki.net are also a great resource.

My favorite LS flashing story is when I installed OpenLink, and didn't realize ahead of time that I had a Japanese-language installer. I didn't have the necessary fonts installed in Windows, so even someone who reads Japanese would have been stumped by the unintelligible characters in the dialog box. I guessed which of the three buttons was "Continue", held my breath, clicked, and waited. And waited some more. Not much was happening, so I figured that must have been the "Cancel" button, so I started all over again, and pressed a different button. Within 10 minutes or so I had telnet access and was off and running.

If you're really risk averse about flashing it, you might also consider using the LS with the stock firmware for a couple weeks just to make sure that it's not a defective unit, although that usually becomes readily apparent -- or not -- the first time you power it on. Then flash away. Good luck!!

[TiredLegs]

So I have this brand new Gigabit linkstation - the HG ones, with 300GB (a little under, actually, but who'se counting?).

I'm following along in various places about how to hack it, and they all say I need telnet access. But as far as I can tell, telnet access isn't available on this box (or I haven't found where to enable it).

I gather that if I flash it with openlink I'll get telnet access, but I'm hesitant to go there blindly. So I thought I'd ask. Am I headed in the right direction?

Michael,

Have you been using the LinkStation SlimServer installation directions from Marc Fields (http://fieldnetworks.com/slim/linkstation.html)? If not, that document explains, step-by-step, exactly how to gain "root" access to telnet into a LinkStation. Not sure if it applies any differently for the HG models.

[aubuti]

I had assumed that Michael was already looking at Marc Field's pages, but if not, I can confirm that they cover installing slimserver on the HG LinkStations just fine.

[TiredLegs]

By the way, I've been using a LinkStation 300GB, and just purchased a DriveStation 250GB to add to it. Here's what pushed me over the top to buy the DriveStation:

Now through Sept. 7th, Fry's/Outpost.com has the DriveStation 250 for $119.99 minus a $50 rebate, for net of $69.99 after rebate, including free shipping. See http://outpost.com/product/4194093

Best deal I've seen yet on a DriveStation.

[aubuti]

Yowza, that is a great price. Thanks for the info, because I was going to be buying an external USB drive sometime in the near future anyway.

[Michaelwagner]

For me, in Canada, Tiger Direct had the 300 GB gigabit linkstation for $330.

In comparison, the Synology 106j (without a drive in) is $250.

[aubuti]

If that's Canadian $, that's pretty good for a LinkStation, and not that bad even if it's US$. From what I've seen in recent months, you need to spend at least in the neighborhood of US$1 per GB for a NAS that will run slimserver, and quite a bit more for higher end NASs. On the other hand, the DriveStation is just another "dumb" USB hard drive, which -- very roughly speaking -- tend to go for about half the price of a similarly sized NAS.

[Michaelwagner]

That was 330 Canadian $, in Canada.