Why ASUS does not allow Samba?

[hiall]

Anybody knows why Asus does not provide a firmware such that yoiu can use the USB hard drive a network drive and not as a FTP server?

I am annoyed because I have bought the WL500g because I want to use an external hard drive connected to the roouter as a shared network drive!

I do not think that for ASUS would be such a inconvience to provide rhis feature or at least to allow the user to choose from the web interface if you wamt to use the external drive as FTp or a shared drive.

1. Any idea why Asus does not provide this?
2. Anybody tried to sumbit to Asus a Product Change Request?

As auser I do not want to go install a custom firmware that is not Asus original

[Oleg]

This is purely marketing thing. You should buy wl-hdd if you want samba or use netgear wgt-634u.

[Antiloop]

This is purely marketing thing. You should buy wl-hdd if you want samba or use netgear wgt-634u.
this is indeed marketing, if you really want this without using custom firmware (which won't harm your Asus device) you should buy WL-HDD or probably wait for WL-700g

the tech guys get instructions from product owners which they have to follow, if product owners don't think this feature should be added it will not be added.