More hackable hardware: Installing OpenWrt on Seagate DockStar HOWTO

September 10, 2010 | Hacking | By: Mark VandeWettering

I have a suprising fascination with devices that can be reflashed with custom firmware. I have an old NSLU2 from Linksys. I have more than a couple WRT54Gish routers that run DD-WRT and Tomato. I have a Canon SD1100 that runs CHDK. I have an ASUS router that runs OpenWRT. And here’s another possible hackable device:

Installing OpenWrt on Seagate DockStar HOWTO

The gadgets used to be $99, but they are now on sale directly from Seagate for an entirely reasonable $39.99.

Seagate’s Page

Sounds like too much fun.

Addendum: A bit of clicking reveals that the CPU is an ARM-compatible SOC running at 1.2Ghz (not shabby) and with 128 megabytes of DDR2 RAM and 256 MB of NAND flash. This is actually quite a bit beefier than any of the other OpenWRT compatible devices I have. Very interesting.

Addendum2: Apparently the Dockstar is essentially a version of the SheevaPlug, but at the $40 price point, quite a bit cheaper.