Sadly, it appears the review at inspector-gadget is entirely off-base and this device is simply another USB hub with built-in Bluetooth adapter, not a magical USB-Bluetooth bridge. The first clue was that QVC UK (of all places) sells it. The second was the product description and review there.

Thanks, I performed a test of transmitting 1 GB of /dev/random data using 802.11g w/WPA2 using scp without compression. With no other load my average speed with a conservative noted link quality of 45/70 was 2,3 MB/sec.

From what I understood, more WLAN clients even decrease the available bandwidth because every client gets an equal speed to/from the WiFi AP.

However in the use-case where a user in a hotel with a WiFi AP with external HDD attached to it uses Nokia N900 to access the AP and HDD I think you can assume a good link quality, and the choice of only 1 client. So while on a public AP or subscription-based AP the speed would seriously decline in our use-case the user has full control over the AP.

The reason it is interested to see the throughput of USB is to get clear in which use-cases external HDD + WiFi AP is a feasable solution. Obviously, not in the case a user wants to watch 720p movies from their HDD, but in which situations is it usable? Say the HDD is full with MP3s. Usable? I think so. Pictures? Depends on quality. And, when is USB HDD not useful? Need to know max throughput for that answer.

Oh! A glimmer, ever-so-slight, of hope!

Well, it seems that the same sysfs file used to enable host mode in N810 will at least do "something" in N900. Anyone willing to fry their N900 to test?

"fry" in what way? +5V to the wrong place, causing the CPU to melt?

Connecting self powered USB devices to it and watching

I'm asking, what are the realistic risks here? What could go wrong? "fry" is such a scary, nebulous word... what does it mean in this context?

(Yes, I'm thinking about it... How much would Nokia charge me for bricking a loaner device, I wonder?)

This is what diodes are for.

Well, I did fry my Palm T|X when I connected a self powered USB hub to it after having played a bit with the UDC controller registers. Up to this day I'm not exactly sure what happened.

Right, and a diode (with proper orientation of course) blocks incoming voltage so that can be avoided. I've used them in DC logic circuits for that reason.