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Asus WL-700gE WiFi Router: Built-In 160GB Drive, iTunes, and Bittorrent

gizmodo.com — "It has a built in network iTunes client, so it'll show up as an iTunes client to your PCs. And it has a BitTorrent client that can rip down 7 streams automatically (and 10 FTP or web streams at the same time.) That's with your PC off, all downloads handled by the router. And there's a lot more. Too much more to share before the jump."

Who dugg this? Made popular Aug 11, 2006

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  • Tiabin, on 10/12/2007, -6/+46I'm usually a dupe-hound... But in this case, that description sucks and doesn't even mention the itunes client, nor did it (nor will it) make front page. On top of that, this is a gizmodo article which gives different commentary.
  • subodhgupta, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37Available at Newegg for 259.99

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822320001
  • tont0r, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18A "dupe" to me would be something that got on the front page and then someone else posted it , and it got on the front page. The fact that you posted it earlier with a bad description does not make this a dupe.
  • Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12With a name like Commodus, he's just trying to steal someone elses glory and unrightfully rule the empire that is digg
  • hoowahman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11you can buy an xbox, mod it, and hook a wireless router up and get the same thing for $200 probably. Just saying this is just a media center stamped as a router.
  • Foo667, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Smaller, lower power consumption, better support, and already configured.
    You could do similar things with an xbox, or an old PC. But it's good to see hardware manufacturers taking steps to support more advanced functions like this. It should help spread the idea of having a home server machine to more households at greater speed.
  • dotorg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11debtman:

    Your electricity may be $.08/kw hr, but most of the country is not. My electricity is actually 8 cents per kw/hr but the distribution charges double that.

    100w is pretty conservative, unless you let it sleep... Most desktop computers tend to draw closer to 200w.

    So your 200w computer at 16 cents per kw/hr is costing $23/month.

    My small data center in my basement adds $50/month to my electric bill. Thats four routers, an HP server, a PC and a NAS device. I've been looking at replacing some of that hardware with laptops for just that reason... because a $30/month savings adds up VERY quickly, even ignoring the environmental impact of it.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9great router, but the bittorrent client can be improved

    http://torrentfreak.com/review-the-wireless-bittorrent-router/
  • thatbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Actually, your question is relevant. DD-WRT, properly expanded, could surely handle this hardware better than the official firmware.
  • portwojc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The ASUS page

    http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=12&l2=43&l3=0&model=979&modelmenu=1

  • Chicken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Lugging an Xbox around wouldn't be cool since this thing already has a 160GB in it and can act as a portable hard drive or many other things.
  • debtman7, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Er, this router esentially is a PC... But my point is, if you already have a PC (which anyone who would buy this does) you can pretty much do everything this does already, without spending $270. Provided your PC is relatively recent and has a good size HD of course. I don't see how size matters, if you use the PC *you already have* then how is it's size going to be a problem?!?! Power, sure, I guess if you are trying to save on power a router like this might be a better solution. But that's irrelevant if you already leave your PC on all the time.

    Let's see, at $0.08 per kilowatt hour, assuming an average draw of 100 watts (I'm guessing on this, assuming that when not in use the PC monitor will be turned off and it will do some form of energy savings), your electricity cost would be $5.76 a month to leave the PC on 24 hours a day. Who knows how much this router draws, but let's say it does 25 watts, which is just a random guess. I would cost $1.44 to run. Savings per month of $4.32. Total time to pay for itself, 5 years and 2 months.
  • Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I don't know, I see this as a pretty useful thing for sharing files between my different machines and not have to have them all running. Right now I have a giant external drive that I share on the network but that means my pc has to be on or I have to switch cables. My PC is loud and has lot of lights. This is unobtrusive and with it my stuff would be always there. Same with the built in FTP server. Yeah, I could run it off the pc but this would be easier.
    I do wish they had a version where you could add your own harddrive. It would probably shave a hundred bucks off and make this more affordable.
  • joerendous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6the people don't love you Commodus
  • Popdmb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Then have him kill Commodus."

    *narrowly avoids spit from Russell Crowe's mouth*
  • Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5More than likely is using Daap http://daap.sourceforge.net/

    Thats what Xbox Media center uses to show up in itunes as a remote itunes connection.
  • johnhummel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Hm - I'm moving into my new place, and this has some possibilities. My ultimate goal is to install a NAS, rip all of the DVD's and music in the house to it, then setup a Raid 5 hot-swap to handle it all.

    This might be a good short term alternative until I get my NAS running next year. Hm....
  • stian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5WL300-g and WL500-g both run linux, and i bet WL700-g does it aswell.. (samba server, etc)
  • cmiz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Wouldn't surprise me... Linksys seemed to get a lot of mileage on their routers running linux.
  • nanomaton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4guh? I've never had any issues with my powerbook connecting to non-airport networks.. that's the beauty of standards.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You need to hook up a "digital media adapter" to your tv.The router is the server that streams the video files, the video codecs should be in the DM adapter.
  • ZennZero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@sych0

    The router has usb storage expansion options. I also wouldnt doubt that someone figures out how to replace the internal drive with something larger.
  • cmiz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I wonder what types of media sharing it uses. It says it has iTunes and whatnot, I wonder if they included samba as well. It'd be awesome if you could mod an xbox with xbox media center and use it as a front end for this router on your TV.
  • Terc, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13@seugenev
    Wow, blatent spam. Not even a comment. And completely unrelated to the article. BLOCKED
  • dizzybastard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5A nice idea.. would definitely shave a few bucks off of the electricity bill =)
  • rcoppa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4May I recommend the NSLU2 from Linksys?
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833124036
  • squison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yes, it has a samba server as well.. from http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=43&l3=0&model=979&modelmenu=1

    "DHCP Server + Samba Server/Local Disk:
    Connect to WL-700gE LAN and share files via local disk"
  • Murphys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4OuT of stock.
  • Murphys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I posted a link to a product about 9 months ago that seems awfully similar. Features built-in disk utilities with up to 250GB storage capacity, remote access through a private browser, windows explorer and through an ftp client. Includes Internal Apache Web server, File Server(Samba), FTP server and Printer server Itian MyServer

    http://www.myitian.net/
  • squison, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4if it's linux, I'm wondering what they're using for the itunes hookup..
  • phatpat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've never had any problems with my Mac accessing non-Apple access points. Is this a known issue?
  • Akram, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I couldn't care less at how much it cost or if this story is a dupe, i'm getting this.
    I hope someone makes a hack so you change the Bit Torrent client and modify it a bit.
    Still HOT stuff.
  • veza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3scroll up - http://digg.com/hardware/Asus_WL_700gE_WiFi_Router_Built_In_160GB_Drive_iTunes_and_Bittorrent#c2650228
  • SanTe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well that's one way to drive the RIAA nuts: take the people out of filesharing completely. How long before someone hacks it to use something other than iTunes or other DRM'd music services?

    Can't wait to see the new lawsuits. Plaintiff RIAA vs. Defendant Asus WL-700gE WiFi Router, now playing in a courtroom near you. LOL!!!

  • digitaldivider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3damn. that is pretty nice for a router. the one thing that turned me off from it is the fact that the bittorrent client is buggy. If there was a way to install utorrent on the router... well, who knows? I'm sure someone will an itch and some curiousity will find out if it's possible, but until then I'll wait it out.
  • BuGz213, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3wow indeed... im definitely getting one of these in the future
  • GIFF3, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6"before the jump" happens to be the dumbest thing i have ever heard.
    Also this product looks wicked sick!
  • barnis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3what do they mean that you can stream to a TV with an AV adapter? What sort of adapter are they talking about. I would love to use this kind of thing to torrent movies and then play them directly onto a TV. Does it support DIVX or just MPEG anyone know?
  • Netmindstorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3As someone else mentioned above: http://torrentfreak.com/review-the-wireless-bittorrent-router/

    con’s
    # transfers stop at random
    # files disappear
    # tweaking options are limited

    And yes, it is but one internet review, but look at the cons..."files disappear". The review doesn't elaborate on this. One could assume that it means torrent files based on the issues noted in the review, but if "random" files are just disappearing, I think I'll wait for a firmware upgrade.

  • speedyrev, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Please stop using the word "jump." It's really driving me crazy.
  • zane411, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I know what I'm asking santa for this christmas!
  • tackle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2so... friggin... expensive..
  • dcasegr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If this thing has an ssh server, this could be a sweet way to remote into your home network. One box would basically do everything I have a seperate server for.
  • Bo6us00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From the support page for the product on ASUS' site:
    Description: GPL source code for firmware version 1.0.4.2
    This product includes copyrighted third-party software licensed
    under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Please see
    The GNU General Public License for the exact terms and conditions
    of this license. We include a copy of the GPL with every CD shipped
    with our product. All future firmware updates will also be accompanied
    with their respective source code on our web site.
    Note that we do not offer direct support for the distribution.
    ftp://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/WL-700g/GPL_WL700gE_1042tar.zip

    Yes, it appears to be running Linux.
  • andrew.bell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Does it support downloading the torretns via RSS?
  • TechCoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I hope they provide some updates to the firmware to make it more reliable. If they do I would buy one.
  • schrags, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I don't know about you guys but when i want a router, i want a router. I don't want it to do other crap. Other stuff is for that. A router is supposed to move packets around, not all this crap. I would be worried about security and stabability.
  • REpler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1More details here:
    http://www.macsat.com/macsat/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=31&topic=299.msg1979;topicseen
  • cwcheang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i've been waiting for this for a long long time... but 2 months ago i can wait no longer and snapped up another router(damn). i like the usb ports of this router. sharing normal usb printers without a computer...
  • exsst, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4You not really noticed how much power a PC takes?.. Or even the size of a pc? Or the place to put a big PC tower?
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