[Freedombox-discuss] NAS or little-space-sheevaplug, the HD question

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 05:49:29PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> My feeling for the sheevaplug is that it's "cheap" so you should
> expect it to break and need replacement anyway. Ideally, use case
> should be something like:
> 
>    * buy sheevaplug and cheap storage
>    * configure, create identity, add content, setup "cloud" backups
>    * have it break :(
>    * buy new sheevaplug and cheap storage
>    * re-identify yourself
>    * have it grab backup from the "cloud", and start working again
> 
> For the time being I think I'm going to just use a 2GB SD card for
> development, and a ~500GB? USB drive I've got handy, with the idea
> being to work out how much space I actually need and eventually just
> use an SD card and my ReadyNAS. Not sure what "cloud" backup might
> actually involve, though.

I would take the "cloud" aspect a bit further, and consider whether online
storage could be used for more than just backup.  I don't think the FB needs
to be completely self-contained, so long as it preserves individual autonomy
and control, and provides the services that people want.

For example, if some of my bulk data gets stored (with appropriate privacy
and redundancy) on other people's FBs across a P2P network, and a subset is
cached locally for performance, that seems consistent with the FB concept
and helps keep the hardware simple, reliable and cheap.

This is also significant in the context of sharing content with others: this
is much more efficient if the content is already distributed, rather than
behind a single slow DSL uplink.

-- 
 - mdz