Does this exist? USB hard drive *with* NAS capability...

[slugg]

While searching the Googles on the interwebs, I keep getting results for stuff I don't want.

So in an ideal world, I'd like an external hard drive that can be connected to with USB, but also has an ethernet port and acts as a NAS. Both interfaces should "just work," and they should "just work" at the same time.

What I'm trying to do is hook up a hard drive to my Roku via USB, but I want to be able to upload files to it whenever I want.

Does such a product exist? I could go for an already made product (something retail like a Western Digital or Seagate), or an enclosure that requires that I put my own drive(s) in it. Either way is fine.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance. 🙂

 

[HeXen]

You might search for "Cloud Drive".

 

[VirtualLarry]

So in an ideal world, I'd like an external hard drive that can be connected to with USB, but also has an ethernet port and acts as a NAS. Both interfaces should "just work," and they should "just work" at the same time.

That's an awful lot to ask, especially of a consumer-level device.

Don't think that you'll find what you're looking for, sorry.

There are some really strong technical reasons why the above simply won't work, at least with Windows and Windows-based filesystems.

 

[slugg]

Awe shucks.

Okay, so let's try this... how about a low powered NAS device that can run Apache web server or otherwise FreeNAS? I don't want the power consumption overhead of running my desktop while the Roku is streaming from the NAS. I never considered an actual NAS until I found out that Roksbox for Roku is able to stream, as long as the NAS device is running Apache and provides a directory listing.