Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS • Hacker News Board

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#11

Post by justin66 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

lunfard000 wrote: post #4

Raspberry is not really cheap anymore. The start package (rp4 4gb + charger + sd + ethernet/hdmi cables) is 100 euros in my country. Meanwhile you can get a GK3V mini pc on Aliexpress with a j4125, 8gb LPDDR4 and 256GB SSD for 180 euros, which probably has 3x-4x the performance of the pi.

That's quite a markup you're experiencing. A conversion based on US prices makes it seem like you should be able to get that stuff for a little more than sixty Euros. If you can get it at all: availability is tough right now all over, I assume.

Is that price difference about shipping costs or VAT or what?

> GK3V mini pc

That is a very cool looking thing, but targeting a different use case, I would think.

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#12

Post by Lownin » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #2

After watching Geerling's video on YouTube about building an ARM NAS I almost went that direction -- but opted for a Synology DS918+ instead because my need for a NAS is not just experimental but something that needs to work reliably.

What happens when the Sinology dies? Do I have to buy another Synology to mount my array again? Does it have to be the same model, or family of models?

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#13

Post by Terry_Roll » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #2

After watching Geerling's video on YouTube about building an ARM NAS I almost went that direction -- but opted for a Synology DS918+ instead because my need for a NAS is not just experimental but something that needs to work reliably.

And I use pi's as interchangeable/swappable processors for a variety of different tasks. Its only casing which people tend to miss with pi's which can be addressed with 3d printing.

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#14

Post by mikece » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Lownin wrote: post #12

mikece wrote: post #2

After watching Geerling's video on YouTube about building an ARM NAS I almost went that direction -- but opted for a Synology DS918+ instead because my need for a NAS is not just experimental but something that needs to work reliably.

What happens when the Sinology dies? Do I have to buy another Synology to mount my array again? Does it have to be the same model, or family of models?

I haven't tried pulling one of the drives from my system and trying to read it with another box but I imagine just about any Linux system should be able to read BTRFS drives, no? Under the covers Synology's DSM is Linux with some proprietary apps on top.

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#15

Post by moondev » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

Compare this to another aarch64 system, honeycomb lx2

esxi for arm on the lx2 now supports pcie passthru of it's PCIe3.0 x8 slot. I successfully passed the nvme controller and a 25GbE port from a ConnectX-4 into an ubuntu 21.10 uefi aarch64 vm

Linux chad-SolidRun-CEX7-Platform 5.13.0-22-generic #22-Ubuntu SMP Fri Nov 5 13:22:27 UTC 2021 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983 (prog-if 02 [NVM Express]) Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983

0a:00.0 Ethernet controller: Mellanox Technologies MT27710 Family [ConnectX-4 Lx] Subsystem: Mellanox Technologies Stand-up ConnectX-4 Lx EN, 25GbE dual-port SFP28, PCIe3.0 x8, MCX4121A-ACAT

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#16

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

Lownin wrote: post #12

mikece wrote: post #2

After watching Geerling's video on YouTube about building an ARM NAS I almost went that direction -- but opted for a Synology DS918+ instead because my need for a NAS is not just experimental but something that needs to work reliably.

What happens when the Sinology dies? Do I have to buy another Synology to mount my array again? Does it have to be the same model, or family of models?

I haven't tested it on Synology, but at least on ASUSTOR, the RAID arrays are set up using mdadm internally—so I was able to pull the drives, plug them into a Pi through a SATA card, and recover the array pretty easily using mdadm.

The vendor NASes do seem to add extra partitions besides just one main 'md0', though—so you probably couldn't expect to yank the drives from a Synology and pop them into an ASUSTOR directly.

I also tested pulling drives configured in the Drivestor and putting them in the Lockerstor, and that worked, but there were quirks if I tried in the opposite direction.

In the end, I would rather make sure I have a complete/separate backup of the NAS before attempting to move the drives, just in case.

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#17

Post by lunfard000 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #11

lunfard000 wrote: post #4

Raspberry is not really cheap anymore. The start package (rp4 4gb + charger + sd + ethernet/hdmi cables) is 100 euros in my country. Meanwhile you can get a GK3V mini pc on Aliexpress with a j4125, 8gb LPDDR4 and 256GB SSD for 180 euros, which probably has 3x-4x the performance of the pi.

That's quite a markup you're experiencing. A conversion based on US prices makes it seem like you should be able to get that stuff for a little more than sixty Euros. If you can get it at all: availability is tough right now all over, I assume. Is that price difference about shipping costs or VAT or what? > GK3V mini pc That is a very cool looking thing, but targeting a different use case, I would think.

idk, maybe you get it a bit cheaper if you look around. This is from a offical store though: https://www.raspberrystore.nl/PrestaShop/complete-sets/245-r...

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#18

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #14

Lownin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when the Sinology dies? Do I have to buy another Synology to mount my array again? Does it have to be the same model, or family of models?

I haven't tried pulling one of the drives from my system and trying to read it with another box but I imagine just about any Linux system should be able to read BTRFS drives, no? Under the covers Synology's DSM is Linux with some proprietary apps on top.

Yeah I know at least ASUSTOR's ADM and Synology's DSM are both basically lightweight Linux distros (usually on an older kernel than what you'd expect building something custom), and they use standard Linux storage tooling (for mdadm RAID or btrfs).

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#19

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

lunfard000 wrote: post #4

Raspberry is not really cheap anymore. The start package (rp4 4gb + charger + sd + ethernet/hdmi cables) is 100 euros in my country. Meanwhile you can get a GK3V mini pc on Aliexpress with a j4125, 8gb LPDDR4 and 256GB SSD for 180 euros, which probably has 3x-4x the performance of the pi.

The kits are always going to be marked up—and even more so today, since it's so hard to find individual Pis in stock anywhere.

Here in the US, the only way for many people to get a Pi 4 is in a kit that's at least $100 (sometimes scalped and marked up to $150-200 on Amazon or eBay). Until about 3 months ago, though, I could reliably find a model I wanted from Micro Center or one of the official Pi online resellers for $35-75 (list price).

Re: Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

#20

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

moondev wrote: post #15

Compare this to another aarch64 system, honeycomb lx2 esxi for arm on the lx2 now supports pcie passthru of it's PCIe3.0 x8 slot. I successfully passed the nvme controller and a 25GbE port from a ConnectX-4 into an ubuntu 21.10 uefi aarch64 vm Linux chad-SolidRun-CEX7-Platform 5.13.0-22-generic #22-Ubuntu SMP Fri Nov 5 13:22:27 UTC 2021 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux 02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung…

I've been wanting to test out one of Solid Run's boards, but haven't had the opportunity. Have you done any benchmarking to see how much throughput you actually get? I would hope it's a lot more than the Pi, but can't know until it's thoroughly tested!

One thing to note: the Honeycomb LX2 is listed at $750 :)