Avr/arm Nas?

[x88x]

So, I have an idea I've been throwing around, and I was wondering if anyone knew of a similar project I could draw on. Basically, I want to make a bare-bones NAS, as cheaply as possible (ignoring the drive), that has ethernet and wifi support (maybe just a USB host chip?) and one SATA port. Like I said, this is just an idea that's been bouncing around my head, so probably a fairly low probability that I'll actually do anything with it, but I just thought I'd see if I was missing any projects that are already going.

[crenn]

AVR is almost ruled out since most AVR chips don't have a DMA controller and the ARM chips that support that will probably need a BGA soldering job.

[crenn]

This is what I've found, a chip that has everything you need except for the external ram:

http://www.marvell.com/products/proc...ed/armada_300/
http://www.marvell.com/products/proc...armada_310.pdf

There is also pre-built boards available for purchase:
http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php

However the board you want is around $289 which negates from the next option.

Buy a NAS and hack the firmware. I have 2 blue ring WD NASs at home which I've hacked to have SSH enabled and from there I've been able to install opt-ware. Currently it's running screen and irssi. But it can do a lot more. I can nearly say with certainty that all NASs are going to run Linux, especially the newer ones. Whether you can get access to the terminal is another matter, but there might be a serial interface that you can get through.

[x88x]

Thanks! That's a pretty sweet chip right there. Quite a bit more expensive than I was hoping for though.....at that price point I might as well use a bifferboard or maybe crack open one of these little NAS's.