I use a Raspberry Pi 4B with a USB 3 JBOD 4-bay disk enclosure, with the disks in a ZFS pool, and it has been working great for my needs.
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Synology are very good and have good dedicated models for home usage. Way better than old PC. There are YouTube channels about nases, they compare different brands and models - check them.
"Cheap" is a relative term.
Dig out an old computer and stuff it with a SSD and a handful of HDDs. And you have a decent start.
the old PC thing is a clear first choice. Also a WD NAS, preloaded with Hard drives have a very good prince point if you also need the HDDs e.g. The WD My Cloud EX2 with 2x6TB HD is currently 422€ (amazon spain) and each individual 6TB WD red is 200€. (leaving the NAS at 20€). If you get the 24TB version is even cheaper than the two HD combined.
I would hesitate with WD. I’ve always been a fan of their drives but their software straight up wiped people’s backup disks a few years ago, iirc. That would give me pause before ever using their software again.
Well you are not required to use any software from Western Digital with its disks. SATA is an industry standard.
I agree with the hesitancy on WD. They're also starting to automatically flag NAS drives older than 3 years with a warning flag. Plus when they shipped out SMR drives as Red drives a few years back... https://youtu.be/cLGi8sPLkLY
I've been running a Buffalo 220, 2 bay drive for over 6 years now. I use it to host my Plex media non-stop for that time. Only issues are sometimes when there is a power loss, it gets unmounted or gets reassigned a new IP from the router, but thats mostly me not assigning a static private IP. I believe the one I have only allows for max 8TB but I think it can go up to 16TB. Do not know what the prices are in EU but it similar or slightly cheaper than Synology in price. https://www.buffalo-technology.com/productpage/linkstation-ls220d/
Buy the cheapest old computer on your equivalent of Craigslist and install TrueNAS. If you want to use a lot of drives, make sure there are enough SATA connenctions on the motherboard.
You can also put an LSI SAS raid controller card flashed into IT into a PCI slot and use SAS to SATA cables. Can easily find them used on ebay for reasonable prices. And if you really grow your server, you can transition those SAS ports to point to a JBOD array with SAS ports, although that takes you from "cheap" to "cheap when compared to buying new."
I'm also a fan of Unraid since it makes expanding the array much easier, but you have to pay for it, and it's designed with the assumption that the only thing you're doing on the bare metal is storage, and everything else is either containerized or in a VM.
Edit to add: As mentioned in the comments below (thanks u/GreyBeard@lemmy.one) it's usually preferable to use software RAID, not hardware RAID, unless you know for sure you need that kind of performance, and if you're asking about a cheap NAS you don't. Flashing LSI raid controllers over to IT mode makes them pass through any attached discs, so it's an easy way to add SATA ports when you're running out of them on the mainboard.
Unless you have some really high throughput needs, or are putting it in a real weak computer, I recommend software raid like zfs. No need for a real raid controller unless you just need additional sata ports. Heck, even synologys prefer software RAID these days and they have atom or arm processors.
I'm also in the market for this.
I'm considering setting up a raspberry pi4 nas, and would love to hear pros and cons from people with experience on the matter.
I assume there are faster solutions, but I think it should meet my needs well
I wouldn't recommend a Pi 4 even if you can get one at the listed price. It is fast enough but it lacks the interface and connectivity for a decent NAS.
The main issue is if you try to attach multiple portable drives. My Pi 3B+ could only really power a single HDD, but I wanted to attach multiple. The only solution there was a powered USB hub. I eventually got an old Lenovo mini PC and used that.
Yeah, I'm just split between that or an odroid hc4. I wouldn't even need to buy a case for it.
I made one with an R-pi and hard drive with Open Media Vault. It was pretty easy to set up, and I haven't had any trouble with it. Only one disk so far, since I don't have that much stuff.
Really any PC could be made into a NAS. If you have any old PC laying around you can install Linux to it, and then set up disk shares. I'm assuming you mean an appliance like NAS and honestly the only one I know of, but never used, is Synology.
The Lenovo ThinkCentre computers are great for this. I got one off eBay for $30 (just make sure it comes with their proprietary AC adapter).
A year ago I bought an Adjustor AS3304t to replace my xpenology frankenas. I have been pretty happy with it as a NAS, but it is not as good as a Synology. Still out was pretty inexpensive and work well for is primary purpose.
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