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[sfzhi]

the GPP RS232 apparently only does 3.3V

Let's call things by their names to avoid misleading those of us who don't known better.
GuruPlug does not have RS232. It does have UART, which is not the same thing.

[alessio]

I must say that I am satisfied now with my GPS+.
But, after I modifed it with a new external PSU and heat sink with fan:
http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=1735.msg11274#msg11274

The modification certainly is a huge overkill, but I had terrible issues before and
I wanted to make sure that the overheating and power issues are gone for good.

Otherwise, my configuration is as follows:
1. Guruplug Server Plus
2. Uptime 3 days since manual reboot (last 2 days CPU load at 100%
    doing 200GB data synchronization via SSH from work PC, GPS+ stable all time)
3. Slovenia, 230V 50 Hz
4. 4GB USB key and 1TB MyBook via powered USB hub
5. 100 MBit Ethernet directly connected to Asus 500g Premium
6. Wifi disabled
7. Have not tried the MicroSD slot
8. Bluetooth disabled, no need for this
9. not planning using eSATA

[offtopic]
mola, would you be so kind to share the rrdtool script for generating load image?
Do you use cron job to execute the script? How frequently is this job scheduled?
[/offtopic]

~Aleš

[mola]

the GPP RS232 apparently only does 3.3V

Let's call things by their names to avoid misleading those of us who don't known better.
GuruPlug does not have RS232. It does have UART, which is not the same thing.

... well - my JTAG module has a socket labelled "RS232" and a switch to choose between UART and RS232. Haven't used the RS232 setting though as I've read it's only 3.3V. So UART then. Never mind.

[marsian_ambassador]

My Guruplug has an uptime of 17 days now and works great. I attached a eSATA drive to it, using hotplug, and all went well.

Cheers,
Peter

[punaniac]

Having done kernel and uBoot upgrade to 2.6.34, along with cooling modifications (external PSU and 40x40mm² fan), my GSP+ runs absolutely stable at maximum lukewarm temperature. The metal plates around all the connectors at the bottom are cool now, too. I can confirm that the metal plates had a temperature of around 70°C before installing the fan and removing the PSU.

I'm running the following configuration:

• 230V 50Hz (Germany), external 5V 2.5A PSU
• 4 GB µSD SanDisk Ultra II with complete / fs
• 2x100Mbit LAN
• WiFi in AP mode
• eSATA drive 1.5TB Samsung SpinPoint F2 (HD154UI) in an externally powered IcyBox IB-362StUS2-B enclosure
• DVB-T tuner Terratec Cinergy T Express attached with ExpressCard-to-USB adapter

My approaches to benchmarking the plug were:

• recompiling the 2.6.34 kernel and adding some missing modules... took 90mins at some serious CPU usage. Minor change in temperature, no need to worry at all
• stream videos to my Samsung LCD using Twonkymedia server
• copying files from/to mounted NTFS partition. Really leads to massive CPU load because ntfs3g is slow on the plug
• hdparm -t /dev/sdc shows 90 MBytes/s maximum transfer rate
• tcp throughput on 100Mbps ethernet measured with netcat was aroung 90 Mbps
• trying around with mythtv-backend I streamed DVB-T to my laptop via WiFi which worked at 10% CPU load

Also, I noticed that with 2.6.34 eSATA link speed is at 3 Gbps, while it was indicated 1.5 GBps before upgrading the kernel, occasionally.

best regards,
  Andreas

[mola]

Finally: productive. Aim was to replace my file (etc) server.

Have done kernel and uBoot upgrade to 2.6.34.1, installed Debian Squeeze, did massive cooling modifications (old HD case - see Overheating Thread, Page 7), system is now stable and running cool.

I'm running the following configuration:

• 230V 50Hz (Germany), internal PSU
• 4 GB µSD Transcend Class6 with complete RootFS on EXT2
• 1x1000Mbit LAN (for now)
• WiFi/BT off
• eSATA 4-bay Direct Attached Storage (picture below), eSATA with internal RAID5 controller (Oxford 936QSE Chipset). I'm doing RAID5 with 4 HDs (as opposed to 3+Hotspare), each 1TB capacity - so in total I have 3TB capacity. In one EXT4 volume (Kernel has no > 2TB issues)
• Prolific USB-to-Serial adapter and 1-Wire serial controller plus 1-wire bus (about 20 sensors, counters and I/O)

My approaches to benchmarking the plug were:

• stress tested the CPU (see Overheating discussion, page 7) - all temps ok, in the thirties
• stream videos from VDR server (ridiculous load though)
• hdparm -t /dev/sdc shows >100 MBytes/s maximum transfer rate
• hdparm -T /dev/sdc shows >285 MBytes/s maximum transfer rate
• copied VDR files (size is 2GByte per file) via NFS4 share from / to GPP: Read from GPP-RAID5 to NFS4 client: 40MByte/s. Writing to the GPP-RAID5 array from NFS4 client is even faster (weirdly): >50 MByte/s. The lower read performance might actually point to a bottlenecked write performance of my laptop's HD (Intel SSD with weak sequential write). Clearly that hardware RAID controller does a pretty decent job...

The NFS4 client was a laptop with GBit-NIC and running Ubuntu. Connected to the GPP via a Switch. I'm really stunned by the network write performance to the GPP. And there is no caching involved. These were big files...

Have fun!

[bzed]

So far its workign fine now - but after some modifications: http://bzed.de/posts/2010/09/refactoring_the_guruplug_server_plus/

[flattie]

I have had nothing but problems with my guruplus server.  One of the usb ports was dead out of the box, the other is very iffy.  Updated the uboot the other day and thought that everything was solved.  Had everything set up and looking good again, and after a restart, usb is completely shot.  Does not recognize anything plugged into the usb-port that was working.
An absolute piece of garbarge.

I signed up to this forum, just so I could write this.  This thing sucks!