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The Cheapest NAS

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Re: The Cheapest NAS

#301

Post by sangnoir »

dns_snek wrote: post #242
sangnoir wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) enclosure[1], some even support RAID. If your Nuc is multipurpose, you could then run a virtualized TrueNAS guest (BSD or linux) in QEMU and give it control of the DAS block device for ZFS pools. Being able to run a virtual NAS that actually gets security updates on demand is pretty neat - TrueNAS has an excellent API you can use to start/stop services (SMB, SSH, iSCSI, etc…

Isn't running a NAS on top of USB storage very strongly discouraged? TrueNAS cautions against it. I also want to set up a NAS on a mini-PC with some sort of attached external storage, but I haven't been able to get past this blocker. USB is the only external interface these mini PCs typically support.

> Isn't running a NAS on top of USB storage very strongly discouraged? TrueNAS cautions against it.

You're right, and I don't recommend USB as the only backup solution. I an old eSATA enclosure - not sure if that's an improvement over plain USB - as a secondary backup and keep the device on long enough to complete)

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#302

Post by [deleted] »

danparsonson wrote: post #295
remram wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backup solutions usually need to cover more scenarios than "PC explodes". In fact solutions for that are usually called "disaster recovery" instead. A real backup solution ought to cover the case where you deleted the wrong file, and you find out the next day. Or it got corrupted somehow (PCs and disks can explode slowly) and you find out the next time you open it, a week later. If the cloud service happily replicate…

Sure, there are different acceptable levels of restoration and backup but a 'backup' by definition is just a spare copy of data made in case the original is lost or damaged. I was only pointing out that a cloud copy is a backup, albeit a fairly weak one and as you say not useful by itself in every eventuality. It's just absolutist to deride cloud storage as "not a backup" as it can absolutely save data that would oth…

[deleted]

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#303

Post by CTDOCodebases »

adrian_b wrote: post #237
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can I read more about this?

In general some of the Intel Atom CPUs intended for embedded applications support the so-called In-Band ECC, where a part of the memory is reserved for storing ECC codes. Two of the three ODROID H4 variants use the "Intel Processor N97" CPU, which is intended for embedded applications and it appears to support In-Band ECC, even if this is not clearly advertised on Intel Ark (i.e. at other CPUs of the Alder Lake N fam…

Thanks for the info. I thought it sounded familiar. I have read about In-Band ECC before [0] but good to know how it is implemented on the ODROID.

[0] - https://www.anandtech.com/show/18732/asrock-industrial-nucs-...

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#304

Post by CTDOCodebases »

taneliv wrote: post #235
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can I read more about this?

From Unraid forum thread[1] there's links to another forum[2] and a wiki page[3]. Not yet sure myself what all of this means, but it looks interesting. [1] https://forums.unraid.net/topic/167669-odroid-h4-intel-n97-2... [2] https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?p=384823#p384823 [3] https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-h4/hardware/h4_bios_update#bi...

Thanks for the links.

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#305

Post by edmundsauto »

account42 wrote: post #296
inhumantsar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used PCIe HBA cards pulled from retired servers can be found on eBay for ~$50. They have external facing ports and/or internal facing ports. External is the way to go if you're using a small form factor PC like a business class Lenovo. These are almost all low profile cards, so they will fit in any SFF PC with a PCIe slot. There are special cables which will connect one port on the card to four SATA- or SAS-based dis…

A NUC won't have PCIe expansion slots. You are pretty much stuck with the external ports that come with it.

It looks like some NUCs have M.2 adapter slots that allow PCIe. Seems possible to do with a NUC, you probably can't put 20 drives with it, but 12-16 extra drives sounds feasible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intelnuc/comments/ibchlz/nuc_m2_sat...

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#306

Post by pelasaco »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #27

My secret protip: old Fujitsu desktop/nuc PCs. At least in Germany (Europe?) they are cheap on ebay since a lot of businesses use them and upgrade on a regular schedule. If you care about power consumption like I do, you can Google "$model energy consumption white paper" which contains very accurate data about idle usage, for example https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/wp-energy... In one case I had a…

I have since years, an usb disk connected to my Fritzbox and it works amazingly well. I have a real NAS, but i ended up never using it. Fritzbox with the USB disk is enough to use as scanner dropbox, saving pictures, documents, ROMs.. Sometimes the simplicity beats the whole complication of having extra devices

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#307

Post by rovr138 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #297
MobileVet wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. If you enjoy the config and have the time, by all means. If you just want it to work, by a Synology. Mine has been running strong for several years now and has docker images for my unify controller, pi hole and Plex. Took minimal time to setup and none since that day. Love it Edit: And my encrypted cloud backup in Backblaze B2 was equally as easy to setup and costs a whopping $2 a month for every family pic,…

My Synology DS918+ ran for years without an issue. Then suddenly I woke up and I had the blinking blue light of death, it starts but won't boot. It could be anything from the BIOS battery going dead to parts not being soldered properly. The only way I could get data off their proprietary SHR system (which is great, except when the HW breaks) would've been to buy a new Synology system, put the drives there and pray it…

> The only way I could get data off their proprietary SHR system (which is great, except when the HW breaks) would've been to buy a new Synology system, put the drives there and pray it works out of the box.

First,

https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/How_can_I_rec...

It's just mdadm and lvm.

Second, putting drives in a new NAS isn't hoping it works. It's an official and supported upgrade path,

https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/How_to_migrat...

In case it helps in the future.

Re: The Cheapest NAS

#308

Post by sangnoir »

dns_snek wrote: post #242
sangnoir wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) enclosure[1], some even support RAID. If your Nuc is multipurpose, you could then run a virtualized TrueNAS guest (BSD or linux) in QEMU and give it control of the DAS block device for ZFS pools. Being able to run a virtual NAS that actually gets security updates on demand is pretty neat - TrueNAS has an excellent API you can use to start/stop services (SMB, SSH, iSCSI, etc…

Isn't running a NAS on top of USB storage very strongly discouraged? TrueNAS cautions against it. I also want to set up a NAS on a mini-PC with some sort of attached external storage, but I haven't been able to get past this blocker. USB is the only external interface these mini PCs typically support.

> I also want to set up a NAS on a mini-PC with some sort of attached external storage, but I haven't been able to get past this blocker

You could also buy a PCIe to multiport SATA (RAID) card, but you'll also need a bigger[1] NAS-like case[2] to house the hard drives and multiple power cables for the drives

1. Depending on how mini your PC is and how many drives you want to attach to it

2. I have noticed any case that's sufficiently NAS-like (hotswap trays) is sold at a premium.

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