Maxtor Central Axis Business Edition NAS Server

Wow... I've only skimmed the article, but this thing looks *really* nice.

I didn't see it mentioned, but are their any restrictions on media that can be accessed on it via the internet?  You know, like the way Western Digital crippled their (not)"MyBooks" to block access to any type of file that might be music or a movie.

>> but if you don't install the software, you won't have access to some of the device's features.

Which features are we talking about, exactly?  You know where I'm coming from:   What would be missing if I used it with Linux?

>> While this is not documented, the drive used for backing up the Maxtor Central Axis Business Edition gets formatted using the EXT3 file system.

Which likely means that the drive itself is running Linux or BSD.  I wonder if that gives us any hope of connecting to its shares via NFS instead of SMB or FTP?

>> You can use an EXT3-formatted external drive for both backups and as additional storage.

Consider this scenario:  You backed up to an external drive like this... threw the drive in a fire-safe... and your house burns down.  What's the restore process?  Can you boot a Linux LiveCD, mount the volume, and retrieve specific files without having to go buy another NAS Server?

Right now, I backup all the systems in my house using BackupPC, running as a service on my arcade cabinet.  The benefit there is that you can set up an rsync daemon on all of your other machines (Linux, Windows, or whatever) and have everything done in the background.... but this looks *much* easier to setup/configure, if I were recommending something to a relative or neighbor.

Its interesting that they call it a "Business Server" with *up-to* 2TB of storage....the interface looks awesome, but it'd be fairly easy to fill up 2TB of storage and then be stuck. If they throw in a eSATA slot with port multiplier then I'd be a titch more bought in (If i was a business IT guy looking for storage and remote access AIO)