Looking for a specific hard drive solution

[Mike120]

Hello!

I currently have 2 2tb WD hard drives plugged in via USB to the back of my Boxee Box.

2 questions: When I lived in the UK I had them connected via samba and would use a little program called NoSleep to keep my hard drives awake all the time so there would be no lag. Is there any solution similar to this for USB connected drives?

Second question: Is there any form of NAS that could be connected to my Boxee Box via USB but connected to my PC via ethernet & router?
The reason I ask is that my internet here is crap & unable to stream content from my PC to my box, but as I'm constantly updating the content on HDD's it's a pain in the bum to always be unplugging the USB & power cable to copy new stuff onto them.

Any help would be great!

Mike

[Ronald]

Hello!

I currently have 2 2tb WD hard drives plugged in via USB to the back of my Boxee Box.

2 questions: When I lived in the UK I had them connected via samba and would use a little program called NoSleep to keep my hard drives awake all the time so there would be no lag. Is there any solution similar to this for USB connected drives?

I don't think the Boxee Box firmware has any built-in feature to keep a USB drive 'awake' that way. But if your NoSleep program worked through a samba connection you should be able to continue using that program, keeping the USB drives awake by accessing them from your PC through the SMB server of your Boxee Box. (Perhaps I misunderstood this part though, in case the NoSleep program ran on the same hardware to which the drives were directly connected...)

Second question: Is there any form of NAS that could be connected to my Boxee Box via USB but connected to my PC via ethernet & router?
The reason I ask is that my internet here is crap & unable to stream content from my PC to my box, but as I'm constantly updating the content on HDD's it's a pain in the bum to always be unplugging the USB & power cable to copy new stuff onto them.

This is yet another case where the built-in SMB server of your Boxee Box comes to the rescue...

You just need to configure it properly in the submenu:
Settings > Network > Servers
That menu has three settings that affect the Boxee SMB server.

1: Enable Windows file sharing
This must be ON

2: Password
Leave this blank, since the username is fixed as "Guest" which should use no password. (Bad mistake of Boxee programmers to not make that configurable.)

3: Workgroup
Set this to the same workgroup name as used by your PC (default = "WORKGROUP")

With all of that set up properly you should be able to administer your USB drives from your PC over SMB, just as if they were connected to another Windows PC in your LAN. And this may also allow your "NoSleep" program to work as well, assuming it performs the kind of access which will awaken your drives (sleep modes differ between USB HDD manufacturers and their models).

Best regards: Ronald

[seekified]

There's nothing like that for the Boxee, no. But I'd think the Box would keep the drives awake for the duration of the playback anyway, anything else would be weird.

Your Internet connection speed has nothing to do with streaming capacity from a PC to a Boxee Box on the same network. If you're determined to share the drives from the Boxee, the SMB server Ronald talks about is the way to do it.

[Mike120]

Thank you for the detailed response Ronald.

Your Internet connection speed has nothing to do with streaming capacity from a PC to a Boxee Box on the same network.

You sir, have just improved my life. I had no idea that that was the case. I've just tried streaming from PC to box & it's perfect!
Now i can just have my drives connected to the PC like they were before.

Out of interest, do you know if streaming PC to BB will take up your internet usage allowance?

Thanks again!

[Mike120]

Also, this is the Nosleep program i mentioned.

http://nosleephd.codeplex.com/

[darcilicious]

Out of interest, do you know if streaming PC to BB will take up your internet usage allowance?

No it doesn't. When you're using your network (between machines in your home), you never "touch" the internet so none of that traffic (between your PC and your Boxee Box) counts.

[Mike120]

No it doesn't. When you're using your network (between machines in your home), you never "touch" the internet so none of that traffic (between your PC and your Boxee Box) counts.

Great! Thanks for your help. Feel like such a tool I didn't try this before today!