tdd,
These little boxes will do all of the above, pretty efficiently. I would move all those chores to the Pogo E02(s) without hesitation.
Here is a very good thread we have recently about serial console:
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?8,13263
And you probably already knew this: it is pefectly OK to have a USB thumb for rootfs formatted as Ext3, if you move all your logging to /tmp. And even set up a swap file if you don't expect to use swap, but used as a temporary crash prevention (if you do swap then HDD is needed). I do run mine Pogoplugs with Ext3 rootfs on USB Sandisk Fit, with a cloned backup USB standing by and scheduled rsync backup (but have not needed to use these at all).
These little boxes will do all of the above, pretty efficiently. I would move all those chores to the Pogo E02(s) without hesitation.
Here is a very good thread we have recently about serial console:
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?8,13263
And you probably already knew this: it is pefectly OK to have a USB thumb for rootfs formatted as Ext3, if you move all your logging to /tmp. And even set up a swap file if you don't expect to use swap, but used as a temporary crash prevention (if you do swap then HDD is needed). I do run mine Pogoplugs with Ext3 rootfs on USB Sandisk Fit, with a cloned backup USB standing by and scheduled rsync backup (but have not needed to use these at all).