Introduction

A cluttered office is often the price you pay for living in the digital age. A look around many home offices reveals a broadband modem, a router, a NAS (Network Attached Storage) and sometimes a networked print server. And if you want to run your own web server, you might actually have another "dinosaur" from a previous system upgrade that you’ve converted to Linux. Quad Micro Works promises to eliminate some of that clutter with their Square One Personal Internet Server.

Priced at $399.95, the Square One is an affordable multi-function server that provides most of the basic functions you might need. As the name indicates, the Square One has a square form factor measuring 7 7/8" W X 7 7/8" D X 2 3/8" H.

The Square One functions as a four-port router and has a built-in user configurable firewall. On the right side of the unit, there are two memory card reader slots for sharing your memory cards on the network. CompactFlash (Type I/II/III), MicroDrive, SD/MMC, xD, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and SmartMedia are all supported, though you can only insert one card at a time.

Figure 1: Square One rear panel showing WAN/LAN/DMZ ports, a reset switch, and a USB port.

The rear panel of the Square One (Figure 1) doesn't have the five ports (one WAN and four LAN) you might expect on a typical SOHO router. It has six ports. The sixth port is a hardware DMZ port. A software IP-based DMZ is also supported. Also on the rear panel is the USB 2.0 port used for sharing USB printers on the local network, as well as a reset switch. Power is supplied from an in-line "brick" power supply whose output is rated at 12VDC @ 4 amps.

In addition to being your Internet router, firewall, print server, networked memory card reader and 320GB NAS, the Square One enables a number of Internet services by default. Out of the box, an Apache Web server, FTP, MySQL, and Telnet are enabled. The router automatically routes Web, FTP, and Telnet traffic from the WAN port, so the consumer doesn’t have to add port forwarding rules for those services. However, since Square One allows root access via Telnet (SSH is not available), it would probably be a good idea to create a rule that blocks inbound port 23 traffic, or disable the service.

Tags: NAS, Quad Microworks, Router reviews,

Related Articles: