Suggestion: make NAS specs available

[Cubytus]

As a suggestion to the two valiant maintainers of a project that many outsiders would see as useless: why not make a sticky topic in each section listing the devices' most important specs? CPU type and speed, BogoMIPS, RAM size, partition types, etc?

Let's be real for a moment, this project deals with 10, sometimes 15 year old devices back when SBCs were in their infancy and allowed for manufacturing previously impossible devices, and original manufacturers typically didn't boast about their NAS' technical specs, rather the convenience of having gigabytes of data sitting in the middle of a LAN. Consequently, it can be quite hard to find the exact specs, especially the RAM size which is vital for good performance.

As an inspiration, we could follow what the OpenWRT project does on their wiki for compatible device: first specs, then write down if anything out of the ordinary needs to be done to install fvdw on it, list any quirks (e.g. the LaCie Cloudbox and its infamous overheating issue), etc.

Oh, and ways to do away with the need to have an old, metal Windows XP on hand to install the fimware.

In all cases, thanks @fvdw and @Jocko for helping us keep old devices out of the landfill!

[fvdw]

Good suggestion, we will look at that.
Note there are sites on the internet were you can find some specs like for instance here https://lacie-nas.org/

Your remark about windows xp I don't understand.
I can install our firmware using windows 10 or 11 using the fvdw-sl console.

Furthermore besides the (old) lacie/seagate arm family we have a (beta) version that can run on x86 platform but with limitations regarding supported network cards and chip sets. But there seems to be no or very little demand for that.
Also the raspberry platform version is good alternative and also for that there a fvdw-sl version available

[Cubytus]

here https://lacie-nas.org/

That's a start indeed, although the pages are far less complete than devices made for OpenWRT. Since this project is entirely based in a forum, users could make suggestions edit and let the moderator integrate it. There are also the defunct NAS-central pages, luckily partly backed up by the Internet Archive.

Your remark about windows xp I don't understand.
I can install our firmware using windows 10 or 11 using the fvdw-sl console.

When I did it years ago, using Windows 10 to install fvdw required one to jump through hoops, turn off firewall, use a direct Ethernet connection or something of the sort…
It was simply easier in Windows XP. Since it was so long ago, I don't recall much of the detail, just that it was a major inconvenience trying to find a bootable Windows XP.

Or summarize performance improvement suggestions, e.g. suggested settings for better NFS reliability, faster SMB speeds, etc.

The rationale:
Basically, not everyone has a hardware Windows computer on hand, and many modern laptop computers don't have Ethernet at all. Sure, one can always buy adapters, but that's an added cost that may not be needed more than once (I'm guessing most people haven't wired their home/apartment with cat5e or cat6 cable).

Other ways to install that could be part of a how-to:
Explain the TFTP configuration that needs to be set up in order to install, and just support the ones you are able to test yourself (Windows console or Linux configuration).

These NASes originally came with rather small hard drives to keep prices affordable. From what I read on this forum, many users want to replace the hard drive with a roomier one. Having a writeable .img file would be another nice-to-have option to install fvdw-sl (+automatic partition resizing script, mandatory addition since the partition layout is so weird!). That would be completely platform-independent.

Or something like what was done by Völker Thiele to install OMV on the MyCloud Home, a recent example of good hardware crippled by bad OEM software. (Disclaimer: I received a discount on the MCH when WD massively recalled the MyBook Live. Only WD didn't make it clear how impractical the software was) (No, I'm not suggesting you ditch fvdw-sl in favor of OMV! Subjectively, I feel fvdw-sl is more fit for very low specs hardware than OMV)