Plug Into Plug Computing

Since my last post I’ve continued to use and play with my new Pogoplug. I’ve also run across more resources for “plug computing”. There are 4 main “plug computing” devices available on the market: The Pogoplug (the original which I have, and the new 2.0), the Sheevaplug, and the Tonidoplug. Each of the three address a different user base. Although the Pogoplug and Tonidoplug have the most user overlap. The Pogoplug has been marketed as primarily a disk/file sharing device. Both for users on the same private network, or over the internet. It provides this capability with a proprietary web interface, or driver software to present the shared drives as local drives. The Tonidoplug is marketed as “CLOUD-IN-A-PLUG“. It comes with the Tonido software suite that provides multimedia sharing, collaboration tools, torrent downloading, etc. Aimed more at shared application services, than just disk/file sharing. The Tonido software is available seperately, to run on the Sheevaplug.  The Sheevaplug is a different animal. It is the bare hardware the Tonidoplug (and others) is based on. There is an OS (Ubuntu Linux based), but no end user “cloud” apps. It is sold as a development kit. This is plug computing for the DIY crowd. If you want to develop your own “cloud” in a plug system, this is the place to start. Or, if you are looking for a cheap way to learn about embedded development. And finally, the Seagate FreeAgent DockStar. This is a dock for the Seagate FreeAgent Go hard drives that incorporates the Pogoplug software, and unknown hardware to provide disk/file sharing over the local network and internet.

There are two other plug computing devices based on the Sheevaplug hardware:

CTERA CloudPlug – This is aimed at the business sector, it includes an eSATA port in addition to the usual USB. It also has an online cloud backup capability.

Quadaxis QuadPlug – Looks similiar to the other consumer plugs, also based on the Sheevaplug hardware.

In addition to the off the shelf products there are several online resources to augment these products:

pogoplugged.com

openpogo.com

plugcomputer.org

open-rd.org

plug-server.com