How to download files directly on router/modem instead of PC

I have a modem/router (DSL-2750B) with a external hard drive plugged in the USB port. My idea is to download files directly to the external drive instead of my PC. The reason why I would like to do it is because I want do download a lot of files at night without having my PC turned on (OS: Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 10).

Assuming my question is plausible, I would to know if what I explained is feasible and what are the steps in order to achieve my goal.

Solution 1:

Another option would be to get a Raspberry Pi or similar mini computer to do the downloading for you. You could either hook up the USB drive directly to the Raspberry Pi or have it access the drive as a network share when it's connected to your router. A small computer like this would save a lot of power over leaving a desktop on to do the same thing, and you wouldn't have to worry about flashing your router with different firmware.

Solution 2:

@Op,

The thing you are missing is software. "Downloads" don't happen in a vaccuum; a piece of software requests a resource, by opening an IO stream to it. In general The Server responds by sending the requested resource as part of that stream. If the stream ends (on either side), the download is broken.

So, in the normal case, the PC will walk up to the counter and say "hey, I'm here to pickup that order..." and the server at the counter will say "ok, heres the first box; take it out to the car, and come back to get the next 6billion of them".

In your case, the PC walks up to the counter to pick up the order. they take the first box out to the car, but then drive away, and the server is just waiting for the PC to come back to get more.

So ultimately (dumb yet apt analogy aside) without software running locally to operate one end of the IO stream, no downloading will happen. TCP won;t just keep sending or recieving data when one of the parties to the stream disappears. when that happens, the whole stream breaks. Additionally in your example, the PC is sending the downloaded data to the remote hard disk, not the remote server, which it can't do when off.

As @Tyson suggested, one solution to this is to deploy software to the router itself. That is certainly possible. OpenWRT is one common firmware replacement. Feel free to investigate whether it will run the software necessary to perform whatever particular download operations you are looking for.