RT-N66U (Tomato Shibby) instead of NAS?

[cyf]

So I have a Dell Optiplex (AMD Athlon X2) with Ubuntu 12.04 workstation that I'm running on the network as a sabnzbd and file server. I upgraded the NIC to a gigabit NIC but otherwise left it as is. It has a 500GB drive, which is too small to store everything I want on it.

Should I buy an external USB drive for the N66U (looking at maybe a 3TB drive) or a dedicated NAS device?

So:

1. Add more storage to the Ubuntu box
2. Buy a drive for the N66U
3. Buy a separate NAS solution

The drive would be for storing/streaming media files, but otherwise would not be used for much else. The goal would be leave as many devices off as possible, which would include the Ubuntu box. The N66U would be on, of course, but at least the NAS could go to sleep?

 

[Protos]

Don't confuse storage on your router to a full fledged nas.
The router is not going to come close to what you get with a dedicated Network Attached Storage.