3 ms·

Has anyone tried to do a home NAS server with ZFS on Raspberry Pi 4?

jasomill 6y ago
Why would you choose a system with a single Gen 2 PCIe lane xor bandwidth-constrained USB 3.0 as the only high-bandwidth I/O to build a storage server? I ask as an owner and regular user of several Pi models, including a 4. With that said, assuming you choose PCIe, acquire a decent HBA, and build it into a decent enclosure, I'm sure it'd work as well as typical low-end off-the-shelf NAS boxes, and wouldn't cost that much more in time and materials to set up.
- gpanders 6y ago
  For the uninitiated among us (including myself) could you explain what an HBA is? Or share any more details on how you’d build a low-cost NAS that’s not a Raspberry Pi? I have a Raspberry Pi 4 that mounts a USB hard disk and serves files over SMB and Nextcloud. I have been considering reformatting the drive to ZFS or btrfs and booting the Pi directly from that so that I can start taking snapshots. Is this a bad idea? I’ve looked at buying dedicated NAS hardware before (mostly Synology products) but I’m always deterred by the cost. A low end Synology NAS with drives runs around $500 or $600, which is a huge jump from my little Pi.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    HBA is basically a PCIe to SAS/SATA card (could be other variants but this is the typical one). For a low-cost NAS you could use a spare computer. My first NAS was my old desktop computer, using the motherboard SATA ports. That said, ZFS should work on the Raspberry Pi 4 at least in 64bit mode. You probably will want to use Ubuntu as it has ZFS support. If you have a spare drive you can test with, give a whirl. Just keep in mind this[1] if you have poor performance from the USB-SATA. [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931
netflixandkill 6y ago
It's possible but you're limiting yourself to 2 or 4 UDB drive mirrors. If you just want a zfs storage pool and aren't too picky about anything else, it works, but if your list of expectations goes beyond a place to dump data, you're setting yourself up to be frustrated later. My home net has several pi3 and pi4 systems that boot off a small SD card and then mounts working storage via iSCSI, which works great for how I use them. There's no reason I couldn't serve that off a pi, but their limited IO and memory makes them a poor choice.

Why would you choose a system with a single Gen 2 PCIe lane xor bandwidth-constrained USB 3.0 as the only high-bandwidth I/O to build a storage server? I ask as an owner and regular user of several Pi models, including a 4. With that said, assuming you choose PCIe, acquire a decent HBA, and build it into a decent enclosure, I'm sure it'd work as well as typical low-end off-the-shelf NAS boxes, and wouldn't cost that much more in time and materials to set up.

gpanders 6y ago
For the uninitiated among us (including myself) could you explain what an HBA is? Or share any more details on how you’d build a low-cost NAS that’s not a Raspberry Pi? I have a Raspberry Pi 4 that mounts a USB hard disk and serves files over SMB and Nextcloud. I have been considering reformatting the drive to ZFS or btrfs and booting the Pi directly from that so that I can start taking snapshots. Is this a bad idea? I’ve looked at buying dedicated NAS hardware before (mostly Synology products) but I’m always deterred by the cost. A low end Synology NAS with drives runs around $500 or $600, which is a huge jump from my little Pi.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  HBA is basically a PCIe to SAS/SATA card (could be other variants but this is the typical one). For a low-cost NAS you could use a spare computer. My first NAS was my old desktop computer, using the motherboard SATA ports. That said, ZFS should work on the Raspberry Pi 4 at least in 64bit mode. You probably will want to use Ubuntu as it has ZFS support. If you have a spare drive you can test with, give a whirl. Just keep in mind this[1] if you have poor performance from the USB-SATA. [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931

netflixandkill 6y ago

It's possible but you're limiting yourself to 2 or 4 UDB drive mirrors. If you just want a zfs storage pool and aren't too picky about anything else, it works, but if your list of expectations goes beyond a place to dump data, you're setting yourself up to be frustrated later. My home net has several pi3 and pi4 systems that boot off a small SD card and then mounts working storage via iSCSI, which works great for how I use them. There's no reason I couldn't serve that off a pi, but their limited IO and memory makes them a poor choice.