"Server" for nomadic life
I believe that it’s far from me that one of the local public is working “on the Internet”, having the full opportunity to travel around the country and the world. The main working tool is a laptop. But also for a number of reasons, even in the apartment in which you live for several months you want to have a server. Here it is, this series of reasons:
- you need a capacious screw, which are not yet installed in laptops. Personally, I have several hundred gigabytes of music that I cannot live without;
- The same screw is needed for backups;
- you need to distribute the Internet from somewhere to your laptop and laptop companions of life. Distributing it from one of the laptops is not an option; a constantly sticking 3G modem will interfere;
- torrents at night should download something.
After several painful trials and costly mistakes, I came to the following configuration, which I consider to be very successful:
So, with me in my suitcase I drive:
- a router
- a netbook (eee PC 901)
- 1.5Tb hard drive
- a box (enclosure) - a USB adapter for Winchester
Hard drive lives in a box and is connected via USB to a netbook, on which it is shared. By ethernet, the netbook connects to the router. Laptops get access to the Internet and Wi-Fi netbook resources.
Why so, and not, say, NAS plus a router plus something else? Empirically, I decided for myself that it is this set of devices that provides the necessary flexibility.
- Coming with all this good from a city where there is wired Internet to my parents’ house, where there is only 3G, I can plug the operator’s “whistle” into the netbook and, without changing anything, get the Internet again on the same configuration.
- A full-fledged Windows on a netbook allows you to not only plug any 3G modem into it (not everyone works under the Mac, alas, but everything comes across in different cities), but also do whatever your heart desires in the background. The same torrents swing on a hooked hard drive with a whistle. I tried two NASs, and in both this process was painful and squalid (they say there are NASs with good web interfaces, but I have run out of patience). By the way, the hard drive connected in this way does not require preliminary formatting (after which again the entire music collection is uploaded).
- You can unhook a netbook at any time and take it with you on a trip to a neighboring city. Enough for the "Futurama" in the train and to follow the sites from the cafe, there is nothing to carry large laptops for. NAS is not good for this. Well, an extra computer is not superfluous.
Cost: The indicated netbook can be bought for about 4000 rubles. A box for a hard drive costs about 1000. A router (I needed just such a model) - 4000.
It all weighs to hell, to be honest.
It’s worth everything, of course, usually in the kitchen or in another room so that the hard drive is not heard. Managed by Team Viewer, set to LAN ONLY mode - quite fast and convenient.
In the picture, the modem of the local wired provider also got into the frame. I turned off the terribly loud ticking clock in a rented apartment, instead of them the netbook screen shows time. Conveniently.
Options?
You can experiment with the Apple AirPort Extreme / Time Capsule, which allows you to combine all these boxes into one, but the issue with the distribution of 3G is not resolved.
You can replace the netbook with a net-top, all the same, he does not need a screen most of the time. But the opportunity to take a netbook on trips disappears, and I do not see any advantages.
If there are suggestions for optimization, I will listen with gratitude.
- you need a capacious screw, which are not yet installed in laptops. Personally, I have several hundred gigabytes of music that I cannot live without;
- The same screw is needed for backups;
- you need to distribute the Internet from somewhere to your laptop and laptop companions of life. Distributing it from one of the laptops is not an option; a constantly sticking 3G modem will interfere;
- torrents at night should download something.
After several painful trials and costly mistakes, I came to the following configuration, which I consider to be very successful:
So, with me in my suitcase I drive:
- a router
- a netbook (eee PC 901)
- 1.5Tb hard drive
- a box (enclosure) - a USB adapter for Winchester
Hard drive lives in a box and is connected via USB to a netbook, on which it is shared. By ethernet, the netbook connects to the router. Laptops get access to the Internet and Wi-Fi netbook resources.
Why so, and not, say, NAS plus a router plus something else? Empirically, I decided for myself that it is this set of devices that provides the necessary flexibility.
- Coming with all this good from a city where there is wired Internet to my parents’ house, where there is only 3G, I can plug the operator’s “whistle” into the netbook and, without changing anything, get the Internet again on the same configuration.
- A full-fledged Windows on a netbook allows you to not only plug any 3G modem into it (not everyone works under the Mac, alas, but everything comes across in different cities), but also do whatever your heart desires in the background. The same torrents swing on a hooked hard drive with a whistle. I tried two NASs, and in both this process was painful and squalid (they say there are NASs with good web interfaces, but I have run out of patience). By the way, the hard drive connected in this way does not require preliminary formatting (after which again the entire music collection is uploaded).
- You can unhook a netbook at any time and take it with you on a trip to a neighboring city. Enough for the "Futurama" in the train and to follow the sites from the cafe, there is nothing to carry large laptops for. NAS is not good for this. Well, an extra computer is not superfluous.
Cost: The indicated netbook can be bought for about 4000 rubles. A box for a hard drive costs about 1000. A router (I needed just such a model) - 4000.
It all weighs to hell, to be honest.
It’s worth everything, of course, usually in the kitchen or in another room so that the hard drive is not heard. Managed by Team Viewer, set to LAN ONLY mode - quite fast and convenient.
In the picture, the modem of the local wired provider also got into the frame. I turned off the terribly loud ticking clock in a rented apartment, instead of them the netbook screen shows time. Conveniently.
Options?
You can experiment with the Apple AirPort Extreme / Time Capsule, which allows you to combine all these boxes into one, but the issue with the distribution of 3G is not resolved.
You can replace the netbook with a net-top, all the same, he does not need a screen most of the time. But the opportunity to take a netbook on trips disappears, and I do not see any advantages.
If there are suggestions for optimization, I will listen with gratitude.