What are the limits to home file serving on a Plug?

[Pofadda]

While I wait to see if my Pogoplug (is it safe to say that here?) is/not bricked after trying to put PlugApps Linux on it, I was wondering if I was Doing The Right Thing... I want to use said PP with attached USB HDD as a light-use file server for my wife and I.  She runs W7 and NTFS and I run a Mac and a Linux box, all with the usual file systems.  I would be happy enough to run the USB drive under FAT32 if needed as there are few security threats around here.

My experience with Pogo and a Mac was dispiriting and the PlugApps didn't improve it: invisible folders, 2 possible damaged flash drives and then when returning to Pogoplug OS no devices mounted at all.  The last may be just a damaged conf somewhere...

Is it realistic to have this device run a known, safe OS and to be left to just serve files quietly for the rest of time (sort of)?  If so, what is it? 

One of the possible problems could be that the logging and cacheing that Linux seems to enjoy will burn out the stick (or the USB HDD) that they are written to.  Is this so?  What other uglies await a plug computer user?

[Pofadda]

Bump.

Does anyone actually use one of these things in this way?  I'd love some comments based on your real-world experiences!

[peter a]

I can`t fully see what point you want answering, so I will give my comments based on your real-world experiences with the plug over the last 10 months.
First I got my plug to replace a hacked Buffalo Linkstation pro which I used for a couple of years downloading torrent and serving them via it`s file server.
Over the last 10 month my plug as been constantly acting the same roles with a couple more too.
( torrent server , web server , dlna server , file server , music player(alarm clock))

The problems I`ve had are all been due to hardware , my SD card , PSU driving the USB hard drive Enclosure , the plug psu. I not had any software problems yet , and learnt the hard way.
( 1 ) if you can boot from the hard drive ... use the SD card or nand only for testing, not long term use.
( 2 ) Get the Esata version. More stable than adding an usb drive.

[westyd1982]

I am just replacing a Linksys NSLU2 running Debian Lenny with a Seagate Dockstar running Debian Squeeze as our home file server.  We have only Mac OS X, iOS4, and linux computers.  I run netatalk for file sharing, Time Machine backups, and shared iPhoto and iTunes libraries (I use avahi so that the server shows up in the Finder's sidebar as an available afp server on the Macs).  I also run the Darwin calendarserver and use its CALDAV server for a shared family calendar in iCal and am working on getting the CARDDAV server working for a shared address book.  I have had this basic setup on the NSLU2 reliably for over a year now and am just getting it running on the Dockstar.  It works great with our Macs, iPhones, and an iPad.  In Debian Squeeze you can easily install these packages with apt-get install netatalk, avahi-daemon, calendarserver.

If you can install and manage a Debian server, you home file sharing possibilities are pretty limitless.  For your Pogoplug, you should look at: http://jeff.doozan.com/debian/