How to create your own wireless router, network storage server and media server

I have replaced my Buffalo WRT-G54 wireless router with my own custom built router. This blog explains how I did that. I call this device as RCN (Router cum NAS).

To create your own RCN, you need:

• Hardware
• Software
• Motivation

Motivation for me was

• Storage - I was afraid of storing all my family photos/videos in a single drive. I wanted to have RAID 1 setup. 
• Power Saving - I hate running my i5 24x7 to download stuffs. 
• Media server – I want to get rid of copying photos/videos/movies on my Play Station 3 before watching it – it spoils the mood. 
• Exploration - Fun building new thing. 

The above list is in reverted priority order.

Hardware
I began my hardware hunt 45 days back – it was difficult because of my requirements and availability in Indian Market.

Here is the initial requirement list (strikethrough indicates I gave up that requirement because the items are too costly or not available in India):

• Total board TDP should be less than 40watts 
• Passively cooled 
• Mini-ITX form factor 
• Onboard RAID is preferred 
• DDR3 support is preferred 
• Dual core
• Hardware should be available in India 
• Should be less than Rs.10K 

Here is the final products I purchased:

• Gigabyte GA-D425TUD 
• iBall Baby 306 Cabinet 
• DDR-3 2GB RAM
• 2 x 1TB Western Digital WD10EARS SATA 
• USB to Ethernet 
• USB Flash Drive 
• PCI Wifi Adapter DLink 552 Xtreme N 

Here is some pictures of my RCN (Ignore the fancy cabling)

Mini-ITX board - I didnt expect this board to be so small - Compare it with the building set block

I got two noisy fans with this cabinet - I yet to shutdown and close the holes

After Attaching the Wireless PCI card

Interesting fact about WD10EARS is it use 4KB sectors instead of the conventional 512byte sectors. Since this is a breakthrough software support is not much there. Looks like these drives perform poor if not partitioned properly - Since my requirement demands creating single partition, I purchased this drive and it performs well.

Will post the software things needed in the next post...