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PRYING EYES: Analyzing a NAS

Make it better, but make it cheaper, too. This seeming contradiction confronts consumer-electronics engineers designing a new generation of hardware. How did Western Digital address the disparity? And how far has single-drive consumer NAS (network-attachedstorage) technology progressed in the past few years? (See “Mini-NAS: an unfinished masterpiece?” EDN, Oct 26, 2006, pg 40, www.edn.com/article/CA6382651.)

The PLX810 supports hardware-based encryption of information stored on a mated hard-disk drive, but Western Digital chose not to implement that feature.

At first glance, the My Book World Edition appears to be an open-source advocate’s dream by virtue of the fact that the company makes GPL (general-public-license)-covered code freely available for download from its Web site. Any enhancements that you might develop are seemingly useless, however, because Western Digital defines no capability to upload new software to the device. Don’t worry, though; clever hackers uncovered an undocumented serial port, which uses nonstandard voltage levels, on the PCB. The enthusiasts will need to recompile some of the code for the blue-ring My Book World Edition before it will run on the white-light successor, though.

Click here to view diagram