Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Raspberry Pi project: wireless file server

(1/7) > >>

superboyac:
I would drool at the idea of a raspberry pi sized wireless file server.  Something portable (battery capable) that you can maybe toss into your backpack and grab and send files from.  It doesn't have to stream, but simply browse through the folders and read/write stuff back and forth, maybe with a syncing program even.  I wonder what it would take.  My list so far:
raspberry pi
some kind of distro with a gui, but still lightweight enough for rpi
a wifi usb adapter (there's a popular model rpi users use i believe)
a batter of some sort, i'm guessing one of those smartphone sized usb battery packs

bam!  let's get this show on the road!

superboyac:
holy hell, check this thing out!  $140
http://www.solid-run.com/product/cubox-i4pro/

If that thing can run on a battery, that would be very interesting!
wifi built in!
sdcard
2GB RAM

Give me a distro to load on this baby!  A battery pack...tie it together with a live strong band.  oh yea.
as stu lantz says...."Noiiiice!"

40hz:
You can get it with OpenELEC installed - which makes for a very nice home media server. Better than a Pi in that the port layout is a lot more compact than the hydra-like arrangement the Pi has. And it has a case and power supply included!

Yeah...gimmee-gimmee! :Thmbsup:

4wd:
How much file space are we talking about?

Simple solution if you don't mind an open WiFi:

* A rooted Android Smartphone with OTG capability, (@superboyac: considering the number of posts you've made in the last couple of years, you must have a box full of spare phones :P )
* OTG cable, (powered if you want to run a portable HDD instead of flash drive).
* A flash drive for file storage.
* This app.
Flash drive and OTG cable not even required if you use a 32GB microSD card and it's enough.

If you went and got a TP-LINK MR3020 for what you wanted here, install PirateBox on it.

Self-contained, self-powered web-based file sharing.

Edvard:
Cubox looks real slick, but it's still a bit ouch-worthy at $140 compared to the Pi's $35.

A little advice: when shopping for a wi-fi adapter for the Pi, there are certain chipsets to avoid. There's a long list here:
http://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters
but, speaking from experience, avoid anything using the Realtek 8192CU chipset.  
TL;DR, may not work, depending on equipmentThey say there's drivers, and there are, but whether  but the adapter works depends on some sort of vendor voodoo or something.  The folks at Adafruit sell adapters with the same chipset but different branding and they promise "working out of the box", even though you still have to compile a custom version of hostapd, the Access Point software you'll need to run to use the thing as a file server.  The adapters I bought for mine have the exact same shipset, but getting it working required me to downgrade my kernel, compile a new driver, compile the custom version of hostapd and it's still as stable as a twig in a hurricane.
Next time, I'm going to spend a few more bucks and get something with a RT5370 chip (make sure it's genuine).  Inexpensive, fast, and supports Access Point mode.  

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page