TS 101 Internals?

[roamingstudio]

Dear All,

I was wondering if anyone knows the internals of the TS101? Im very tempted to get one (been delayed due to work committments + holiday) - but also need to balance the decision as I would like it to be able to act as a 'subversion' repository and trac / wiki server. This would need to be installed as a service... I believe this is possible but am not sure whether the CPU etc would become cippled by processing requirements?

One other solution is to build my own NAS from Mini-ITX stuff - but I like the idea of using standard prebuilt / designed systems like the TS101. Where I live the cost of a home built Mini-ITX is more than the TS101.

Thanks

[funkstar]

All NAS units in the same market segment as the TS-101 are going to be pretty limited as far as CPU is concerned. It is powerful enough to decode two RealAudio streams and send them out as FLAC however, so it's not *that* bad

The problem for you is that there is no publicly available method of installing software on the TS-101. Obviously it is possible as Progressive hav been able to do it, but you or me cannot do it.

Units like the Synology Diskstation might be a better bet, they have been completely opened up and you can install any software you want on them. I wonder how similar the hardware is to the Qnap TS-101. The boxes are similar and so are their names. Although this could be a coincedance rather than they are based on the same reference hardware

[roamingstudio]

Bit of digging and I found the review on Tomshardware shows some photos. Mentions no UPnP at the time - now updated and included.
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/0...iew/page6.html

Freescale PowerQUICC CPU
Silicon Image 3512 Chip for SATA
uPD720101 for USB
Intel 8254OEM for Ethernet....

[Paul_B]

What is interesting is where is the memory on the board and how can it be upgarded? Is it a case of soldering in another memory module or replacing the existing memory module:

http://images.tomshardware.com/2006/...101_mb_big.jpg

[peterbell]

I would think that the memory is the two 'PSC' chips, just left of centre. It looks as though the board is layed out to take another couple of chips.

[roamingstudio]

The PSC chips are listed as
A2Y56580BY?
or
A24565420TP

Looking up google stuff... there is a reference to a DDR400 512MB chip (APACER) from PSC with part number
A2S56D30ATP-3049LA0A-5

Hey that looks similar... I wonder?.... Could be DDR or SDRAM. The second line is important.
Its a bit hard to read (even when rotated 180deg)

The link to PSC home page in case others want to experiment...
http://www.psc.com.tw/english/index.jsp

There also appears to be space for either compact flash or mini-pci slot... The white rectangular U shape. Would need to check the footprint architecture - but wifi was (is?) an option once... Certainly it has 2x61+1 pins making it a candidate for the Mini-PCI III 124 pin card. Checking with Molex (www.molex.com - part 67315-0011) the footprint is correct for the mini-pci card. There are two formats - 4mm pitch and 5.2mm pitch - but cannot see which is correct from the photo.