DIY – Wirless Router and NAS: Hardware bits
I have replaced my Buffalo WRT-G54 wireless router with my own custom built router. This blog explains the details involved that process. I call this device as RCN (Router cum NAS).
Hardware
I began my hardware hunt 45 days back – it was difficult because of my requirements and availability in Indian Market.
Here is the initial requirement list I had(strike-through indicates I gave up that requirement because the items are too costly or not available in India):
- Total board TDP should be less than 40 watts
Passively cooled- Mini-ITX form factor
- Onboard RAID
- DDR3 support
Dual core- Hardware should be available in India
Here is the final products I purchased:
- Gigabyte GA-D425TUD
- iBall Baby 306 Cabinet
- DDR-3 2GB RAM
- 2 x 1TB Western Digital WD10EARS SATA
- USB to Ethernet
- USB Flash Drive
- PCI Wifi Adapter DLink 552 Xtreme N
Here is some pictures of my RCN
Interesting fact about WD10EARS is it use 4KB sectors instead of the conventional 512byte sectors. Since this is a breakthrough software support is not much there. Looks like these drives perform poor if not partitioned properly – Since my requirement demands creating single partition, I purchased this drive and it performs well.