Just in case it helps anyone else, I couldn’t write to the MP3 folder on the HD, so I had to delete it as a folder from my Mac with the HD as a mounted network volume, and recreate a new folder as “mp3”. Then I could write to it as needed with the proper permissions, and fill it up with music.
As a low-power solution, I’m really happy with the NSLU2. The attached HD is a WD Passport USB-powered case with a Toshiba 4200 rpm 2.5″ SATA drive inside. Browse functions are slower on my Roku than when connected to my MacBook running iTunes, but the speed is acceptable, and so far it is playing tunes pretty reliably. Hoping to really test it out as I’m pretty snowed in this weekend.
I had to pull that resistor off the NSLU2 board as my hardware turns out to be the older version, so now the speed of the CPU is a full 266mhz, and that did help with load times on the Roku.
On the Mac I use Chronosync to keep the folder synched with my iTunes library, and the only problem is the EXT3 structure doesn’t like “?” or “(” in the song titles, consequently hating rappers with guest vocalists, and all of my ?uestlove albums. 🙂
Thanks again Steve! I wouldn’t have solved this without you.