NASLite Network Attached Storage

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embed ... /index.jsp

All in the title really. It's not fanless like other Via products but is rated as being so quiet as to being almost silent. But with NL running fans at full capacity (or close to), a "quiet" PC can quickly become very much less than, so experience feedback would be most welcome. It has an integrated SSD to boot lite versions of an OS, so installing NL directly to that maybe?

I've had NL running on an ATX MB & case for years, and with the progress in storage capacity I could now drastically downsize the server. I've been looking around for various solutions, from micro-ATX to mini-ITX. As my CPU is old it would be impossible to find a mini-ITX for its socket type, so an integrated solution like this Via Artigo sounds appealing.

Thanks a lot!

I'll make this thread a testimony of my experience with the Via Artigo A2000.

I received it today, with a 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda and 2GB SODIMM ram. Although I managed to boot the NASLite M2 CD installer using a USB CD drive (with great difficulty, the usual boot priority system is complicated by another Hard drive boot hierarchy, and I haven't been able to work out how that works exactly yet), and install NASLite M2 to a USB stick, the Via simply refused to boot from the USB volume. It would get to the point where it looks for the network, fail (normal as it was not connected), then shutdown. All the tweaks I tried could not change that. I did not have a different USB stick to try, but chose to install NL to the hard drive instead, and that did the trick.

I will next try to install NL to a Compact Flash card (as there is an built-in CF drive inside the enclosure, as I'd prefer to keep OS drive and storage drive separate.

NL fails to load if it can't find a supported NIC on boot. My guess is that the NIC is not supported by NL.

Mike

NL booted fine when installed to the HD. It's with NL installed to a USB stick that forced the system to shutdown.

I had checked both SATA and network chipset beforehand with the list provided here, and all seemed fine. I'll test tomorrow.

bah, me too have been trying to install naslite-m2 into my artigo a2000 with no success. If anyone finds a fix for the supposedly unsupported network card, please post if on this forum so others can read.

This really is too bad, artigo a2000 is very popular among nas users.

Have we flashed the BIOS to the latest release?

Mike

Haven't had time to install M2 to artigo yet, but will report when I do.

[EDIT]

ouch. Nagged by doubt I went back and checked again ethernet controller compatibility, and turns out I was looking at the wrong line on the Via website... A2000 has the VT6130 controller, not VT6122 as I previously thought.

I'll still try to install M2 though, see if I have more luck. BIOS updates do not touch the ethernet controller, so I don't think the solution can be there and besides, it's M2 which is not compatible with that particular controller, not a bug. And I don't really like to go around flashing BIOS's if I can avoid it!

Though the BIOS update may not touch the NIC per say it may effect how it interacts with the NIC on the BIOS and in allowing the OS to reassign the IRQs. You might give it a try.

Mike

I guess to boot from a USB device it have to be a U3 type USB device. That way it sees it like a USB drive. New PC's can boot from a USB drive.

-Raymond Day

Looks like it cannot be done. Boots but fails to find a network device then quits and shuts down. Then Kernel-Panics and fails to shut down.

Tony and co, would it be possible to tell me whether you plan to add this device to your compatible list? Just so I know if I should flog the damn thing back on eBay or keep it until you do...

Cheers

Just an FYI, the new version is in the works and should be here fairly soon if all works as planned. Or so I am told. I would be willing to bet that the hardware is much better supported with the new roll and you will not be displeased. So just hold on a bit longer, Tony and Ralph are working at a fevered pace from what I can tell and it will be worth the wait I can assure you.

Mike

But since the supported hardware list is not NL2/M2 specific, but CORE3 specific, if the model is not listed then it will not work either on M2 1.6, will it?

I'm going to have a look at FreeNAS, since it's now too late for me to send the Artigo back. And as I'm connecting to my NAS wirelessly I'm not too bothered by the transfer performance inferiority.

http://www.serverelements.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2954

Burn and boot this ISO, NASLite-2 v2.6 should support that Via Velocity nic, as well as M2 v1.6 when released.

Ah but I don't have any external CD drive I can hook up to the VIA Artigo I'm afraid. I can install 2.6 to a USB stick and try to boot the Artigo though.

Then burn it to a CDROM and boot it on a machine that does with the USB key installed. Then you can then format the USB key and install the OS being careful not to format the boot drive of the machine. After that you simply boot the key in the Via MB and go from there as usual.

Mike