Recommend a wifi router with USB (for external HD)

[z28dreams]

Hi guys,

I currently have a 1.5TB external hard drive that I never use, because I'm constantly on my laptop and don't want to have to drag it around and hook it up. (It requires both power + USB).

Therefore, I'm looking for a solution to hookup the hard drive to the router for constant access.

Any recommendations on a router?

Requirements:
- Must support USB 2.0 (external hard drive interface type)
- Prefer something that is hackable (ddwrt/tomato/etc)

One major question: What is the ideal file system to use? FAT32 just seems ridiculous with the size of various image files these days, but NTFS seems to be a problem if you need to write to the drive.

My main laptop runs windows, so EXT2/3 isn't exactly the most convenient thing.

What filesystem should I go with?
NTFS - which routers would support writing to this?
EXT2/3 - I've seen some routers like the asus that can write to this, but this seems like a huge pain in the ass if I ever need to hook up the USB hard drive to anything other than the router.

What do you think?

 

[z28dreams]

Adding:

Would also consider a very inexpensive USB->RJ45 style connector to hookup the drive to the switch

 

[axion]

I have been in the market for a wireless router myself and after some talking to various people and reading up I think I have come to the decision to get the D-Link DIR-655

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%20DIR-655

 

[mxnerd]

A lot of people like ASUS RT-16N (128MB RAM), and flash it with TomatoUSB.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320038

It seems TomatoUSB now supports NTFS with Extras edition, just don't expect fast reading / writing.

http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types

 

[JackMDS]

Choosing a Wireless Router for its USB port is rather silly. (It is like buying a car because of its Stereo Radio).

No matter what the service provided by these ports is always far bellow what can be provided by a real Network Server Drive.

Any old computer (P-III and above) running Win 2000 (or whatever OS comes with it) can do much more, and better as a Server than these USB port.

The criteria to choose Wireless Router is by the needs of the network's Wireless and the general load of Network traffic.

The Asus above is a good choice for decent price.

Otherwise, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ear%203700