Make Your Own Raspberry Pi NAS

[flamaest]

Where did you find a raspberry pi case for 6 bucks?

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on these add-ons to the R-Pi for use with the XBMC build? Do these items below work and are there better/cheaper alternatives?


----HDMI SPIDIF Audio Extractor:
http://tinyurl.com/cmqe3dd


----Wireless 11n Nano USB Adapter:
http://tinyurl.com/c9fp8fj

 

[eas]

I don't think I'd try a RPi NAS. The HDD and Ethernet interface both go through a single USB2 channel.

 

[stevech]

RPi as a NAS would be slower than a cheap WiFi router with USB and a simple NAS function.

(I have an RPi)

 

[Razor512]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a NAS using a cheap micro ATX + AMD APU CPU, 2+GB of RAM and a few hard drives.

Most pre built/ NAS boxes tend to cost like $400-600 and not even include a hard drive and only offer like 50-70MB/s while for the same money, you can build a PC with a lot more functionality and the ability to actually hit speeds of 100MB/s+ and in most cases will cost the same or less while having 2 or more hard drives.

 

[sdeleeuw]

Where did you find a raspberry pi case for 6 bucks?

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on these add-ons to the R-Pi for use with the XBMC build? Do these items below work and are there better/cheaper alternatives?


----HDMI SPIDIF Audio Extractor:
http://tinyurl.com/cmqe3dd


----Wireless 11n Nano USB Adapter:
http://tinyurl.com/c9fp8fj

The $6 case I used is here.

http://raspberrypi.rsdelivers.com/product/rs/raspberry-pi-type-b-case-clear/caseclr.aspx

I don't have any input on those two items.

 

[sdeleeuw]

RPi as a NAS would be slower than a cheap WiFi router with USB and a simple NAS function.

(I have an RPi)

Hi stevech,

I looked back at some of the router storage tests Tim did.

I tested the RPi at 8.9 MBps write and 8.5 MBps read consistently across several filesystems.

When Tim tested the TP-LINK TL-WDR3500, about $45, it ranged from 2.4-6.3 MBps on write and 7.8-9.6 MBps on read. The comparable EnGenius ESR750H was about the same.

The $180 Cisco-Linksys EA6500 wrote at 4.8-7.7 MBps, and read at 9.5-10.7 MBps.

The RPi looks comparable to both of those routers. Has your testing with the RPi been slower than what I tested at?

 

[thiggins]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a NAS using a cheap micro ATX + AMD APU CPU, 2+GB of RAM and a few hard drives.

Cheaper than some NASes, yet. But not cheaper than an R-Pi solution.

 

[stevech]

DIY NASes, including RPi, lack the great software we find in Synology, QNAP, Thecus.

For me, it's all about the software, given most any decent NAS can do 50 Mbytes/sec or so.

 

[sdeleeuw]

Agreed, the software features of the NAS are big bonus' for me as well. I like the fact our Synology can run apps like Logitech Media Server, Plex, DHCP Server, DNS Server, MediaWiki, run a website, Surveillance Station, etc. It can also automatically block IPs for failed login attempts, connect to AD and so much more.

The RPi could do that as well if you don't mind the configuration aspect of things, but it's nowhere near as easy or straightforward as an off the shelf NAS.

 

[stevech]

Agreed, the software features of the NAS are big bonus' for me as well. I like the fact our Synology can run apps like Logitech Media Server, Plex, DHCP Server, DNS Server, MediaWiki, run a website, Surveillance Station, etc. It can also automatically block IPs for failed login attempts, connect to AD and so much more.

The RPi could do that as well if you don't mind the configuration aspect of things, but it's nowhere near as easy or straightforward as an off the shelf NAS.

In my make vs. buy decision for a NAS, I tried but could not find software (including Time Backup) that I could put on a Linux or windows DIY box to do all that the NAS does (I'm not talking about basic SMB and so on). I'm experienced with Linux servers and desktops.

 

[mar.ste]

ZFS!

Why not to share a ZFS formatted drive?

This would add reliability even if not speed!!

 

[Cake]

I also used a raspi for NAS. I was using truecrypt to mount containers, and then shared the mounts using samba. If I remember the average speed I could get was around 2MB/s or less. I use a Banana Pro now and I get the full 100 MBit/s bandwidth (its supposedly a gigabit nic). On large transfers the Banana Pro will pause a every few seconds though (the banana pro's cpu can't keep up) according to iotop and top. I get the whole 100 MBit bandwidth and no pauses if I am transferring to and from a ext3 drive with no encryption going on. I am sure it can go faster on a 1000 Mbit connection.

The number one important thing for me is power consumption, then performance next. I would like to see a raspi2 with two Ethernet nics and a arm based pfsence.

 

[System Error Message]

There are raspberry pi alternatives that offer gigabit NICs, more memory, better CPU and maybe even USB3. They are obviously more expansive but im eyeing one that combines the arduino arm based controller with a raspberry pi compatible board equipped with an ARM A9 quad core, gigabit NIC. Being arduino it would allow for more NICs connected to bus as long as system bus is fast enough and you could embed your own firewall into the controller. The raspberry pi 2 uses an ARM a7 quad core which is more efficient in performance/power compared to the A9 but is a bit slower clock per clock. So the pi 2 has sufficient CPU power but it lacks the network interface required. You can use usb2 gigabit NICs but they will be limited to 1/4 speed.