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Raspberry Pi holds its own against low-cost ARM NAS

jeffgeerling.com

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

#31

Post by Helmut10001 »

zerkten wrote: post #10
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.

You are right that Synology (or an equivalent appliance) is often best. It's more complicated for geeks and data hoarders once we've been using a Synology for a while. When people go down the Synology path they are often running apps and doing more than providing a big pool of storage. I'm finding that my needs have changed towards my NAS being only a pool of storage on my local network. It is there as the first tier…

Still happy after 4 years with my Odroid XU4/Cloudshell2 - now runs with Dual 16TB. But yes, it is only a storage backend (for Borg Backups), not much more.

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

#32

Post by zamadatix »

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…

At $750 without memory, storage, or case and only offering a x8 PCIe 3.0 slot it seems to lose the advantage of being cheap while still being worse than a non-ARM64 box in terms of interfaces (and likely performance).

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

#34

Post by gjsman-1000 »

timbit42 wrote: post #24
Arcuru wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reference for that? I setup a Synology very recently with non-Toshiba drives.

Reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596179

That's not a reference. Someone else just said that with no further backing behind it.

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

#35

Post by t-3 »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #31
zerkten wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that Synology (or an equivalent appliance) is often best. It's more complicated for geeks and data hoarders once we've been using a Synology for a while. When people go down the Synology path they are often running apps and doing more than providing a big pool of storage. I'm finding that my needs have changed towards my NAS being only a pool of storage on my local network. It is there as the first tier…

Still happy after 4 years with my Odroid XU4/Cloudshell2 - now runs with Dual 16TB. But yes, it is only a storage backend (for Borg Backups), not much more.

The HD controller? (the main IC in the center of the front-panel board) in my Cloudshell 2 imploded recently, now I am stuck trying to figure out what to do. I really don't want to shell out for a whole new NAS, and the XU4 is still running great after repasting the heatsink... but it randomly loses the drives when there's too much activity (I tried libata.force=1.5G, but no luck).

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

#36

Post by erikprotagonist »

timbit42 wrote: post #25
sigjuice wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific Synology NAS model with this restriction? I happen to have Western Digital drives in my Synology DS920+.

12-bay and rack units? Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596179

The last Synology box I configured, a RS4021xs+, has currently a "System health" status of "Danger: The system is now in a dangerous status". In Storage manager every drive is listed as "Unverified" and with a red triangle. (Seagate ST18000NM disks, so quite common.)

I configured it about a year ago. Before I updated to what was then a beta version of DSM it refused to install all together, which was quite frustrating.

The list of supported drives according to Synology is depressingly short for this model - the only non-Synology or Toshiba drive is a single Western Digital.

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

#37

Post by windowsrookie »

timbit42 wrote: post #3
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 do you think about Synology only allowing their rebranded Toshiba drives to work in their NAS? That's a deal breaker for me. EDIT: Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596179

I have schucked Western Digital Element drives in my Synology NAS with no issues. Hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people on Reddit are doing this with no issues.

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

#38

Post by geerlingguy »

moondev wrote: post #22
geerlingguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Planning to benchmark it a bit later today, thanks for sharing your scripts I will start there and share with you via gh. Also happy to report GPU + audio fully working on ubuntu 21.10 aarch64-uefi. GPU is nvidia gt710 in the pcie3x8 slot via nouveau drivers. May take a crack at some unigine benchmarks later :)

Excellent! I may have to find a way to get one...

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

#39

Post by Helmut10001 »

t-3 wrote: post #35
Helmut10001 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still happy after 4 years with my Odroid XU4/Cloudshell2 - now runs with Dual 16TB. But yes, it is only a storage backend (for Borg Backups), not much more.

The HD controller? (the main IC in the center of the front-panel board) in my Cloudshell 2 imploded recently, now I am stuck trying to figure out what to do. I really don't want to shell out for a whole new NAS, and the XU4 is still running great after repasting the heatsink... but it randomly loses the drives when there's too much activity (I tried libata.force=1.5G, but no luck).

Likely the USB-Cable from XU4 to HD controller - exchange it. Hardkernel confirmed that their cables were poor quality and resulted in many disconnects. Mine were gone after exchanging cables.

I have to say my Odroid only runs once a week - started remotely through IPSEC for offsite backups. So it is not a 24/7 setup.

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

#40

Post by tyingq »

solarkraft wrote: post #27
zerkten wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that Synology (or an equivalent appliance) is often best. It's more complicated for geeks and data hoarders once we've been using a Synology for a while. When people go down the Synology path they are often running apps and doing more than providing a big pool of storage. I'm finding that my needs have changed towards my NAS being only a pool of storage on my local network. It is there as the first tier…

I have used an ARM Synology NAS but found it highly inadequate for running services ... or anything but basic storage, really. Only the x86 models support running Linux containers, packaging an application for Synology didn't exactly seem easy to to and the UI is almost unusably sluggish and has super confusing UX (it emulates a desktop environment in the browser ... right, very cool). Running an own standard Linux-b…

There seemed to be change on their low-end stuff when the DS120j/220j came out. The processor and RAM finally seemed enough to not spin off into oblivion, if you avoided the software that catalogs image files.

They are dual-core, 512MB RAM, where the previous DS110j was single core, 128MB RAM and the DS115j was single core, 256MB RAM. The previous models just ran way too close to CPU starvation or swapping hell.

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