App Central
We now slowly move towards the App center and that's where all the fun begins. The days when a NAS unit was merely a file-server are long gone, ever since a year or two ago applications can be installed onto your NAS. Think diverse here:
The NAS can be connected to the web, open the router ports and you are good to go. This unit has a small factory of PHP based apps included alongside an http deamon (apache). Also MySQL and services like SSH can be activated. With the click of a button you can install handy tools to help you manage MySQL. A word of advice though, know what you are doing in relation to security. Secure your directories when fooling around with CMS software and MySQL.
For the downloaders among you, there is plenty to choose from. This NAS can download from usenet or Torrent, unpack and insert the final file into a directory. Seriously, it is easy and convenient once you know how to deal with these handy little software packages. Download and installation of these packages was a bit slow from the EU though.
Performance wise this little dual-core Celeron based NAS with 2GB RAM seriously is fast enough for even USENET downloads. On our 150 Mbit download connection (=18.75 MB/sec) we download at 10 to 14MB/sec and unrarring/par'in remains very fast
