No-Authentication SMTP Servers: Suggestions, Folks?

For reasons that I’ll discuss in far more detail in a coming-soon separate post, I’m in the process of retiring my first-generation Buffalo TeraStation NAS, and I think I’m going to replace it with a Linksys NAS200. With respect to warning-and-error email notifications, however, I’m feeling more than a bit underwhelmed with the Linksys network storage device, which I’ve just powered up for the first time (and for which, I’ve already checked, a firmware upgrade is not…yet…available).

Unlike its predecessor, it at least enables me to override the default SMTP port 25 assignment…employing non-standard SMTP ports is one common means by which ISPs and email service providers (like Google with Gmail) combat spam- and other cyber-cr*p-slinging ‘zombied’ computers. However, ‘close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades’, as the saying goes.

Unfortunately, like its predecessor, and notably unlike the competitive ReadyNAS devices from Infrant-now-NETGEAR, the NAS200 doesn’t support SMTP server authentication…which is another common means by which ISPs and email service providers deal with PC zombies. Most companies implement both mechanisms in tandem, in fact. The only no-login-required SMTP server I’ve encountered in years was SureWest’s, and I lost access to it when my trial of the company’s 50/50 Mbps fiber service ended.

Linkys should know better, but the NAS200 isn’t the first SMTP authentication-ignoring piece of gear I’ve come across, and I daresay it probably won’t be the last. A last-weekend HDD failure, with data loss catastrophe fortunately dodged thanks to a RAID 5 configuration and my fast-enough drive replacement, is the underlying motivation for my TeraStation retirement aspiration. Without email notification, the only way I knew I had a problem was when I happened to casually glance at the silver box and noticed red lights blinking on the front panel. I’d really prefer not to rely on chance proximity and visual attention in the future.

Therefore my call for help to you. If anyone out there is aware of a no-authentication-required SMTP server that I can use in configuration circumstances like this, whether free or (more likely, which is fine) subscription-fee based, please let me know either via private email or (preferably, so your fellow readers can also benefit) public comment post. Note: this server needs to be useable regardless of what particular Internet tether I happen to be using at the time; ISPs blocking SMTP server access unless a usage candidate happens to be online via that same ISP’s connections is the third common means by which ISPs and email service providers deal with PC zombies.

Thanks in advance, gang!