3 ms·

Unfortunately PCs have mechanical devices that give out after a few years. I am referring of course to fans. I use a Raspberry Pi 4 running Ubuntu and Samba as

Unfortunately PCs have mechanical devices that give out after a few years. I am referring of course to fans. I use a Raspberry Pi 4 running Ubuntu and Samba as my NAS. It is cheap and reliable.

eloisius 11mo ago
I do too, but I’m looking to get proper solution soon. A Pi is a pretty lousy NAS. It can’t even power two drives so you can’t have redundancy unless you get a powered USB hub. And even then, I used one of those for a while and the drive connected to it prematurely failed. I think maybe because the power supply wasn’t stable.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 11mo ago
  I have a Pi4 running Raid 1 NAS with two SSD drives, and an externally powered USB hub. Unfortunately, it crashes every 6 months or so and needs a power cycle. Haven't been able to track down why, but I also suspect a power supply issue. Initially I naively tried to run the two drives right off the USB3 ports in the Pi, and that basically crashed within a day - but that is of course because I was exceeding the power draw. An external hub and supply helped, but didn't fully fix the issue.
- lateforwork 11mo ago
  I use a powered USB hub, haven't had a problem in 5 years.
strken 11mo ago
I've had more SD cards die on me than fans. I don't think any have died in the past five years, even.
- PaulHoule 11mo ago
  I can’t remember replacing fans because they stopped spinning but I have EOLed them because the bearings went bad and they started to screech.
- gilrain 11mo ago
  Is there a particular brand you buy? Mine always fail after about 5 years… and I try a new brand each time. Not cheap fans, either; usually $15-20 per 120mm unit.
  - type0 11mo ago
    I tried using different sd cards with RPi but kept having issues with broken filesystem few months after, it was probably caused by bad power supply and electric surges.
    - jhgb 11mo ago
      You don't HAVE to boot RPi4+ from an SD card. RPi4 and RPi5 can boot from an external SSD just fine. I don't recall the last time I used an SD card in an RPi but it must have been years.
      - type0 11mo ago
        Yeah, that's what i have done, but it becomes bulky which doesn't always fits the project
  - baq 11mo ago
    Noctua, but $20 might not be enough for the cheapest one depending where you live. I’m not buying anything else and I’m also swapping out any non-noctua fan in my parts when possible (e.g. bought a scythe cooler due to ‘interesting’ dimensional constraints and swapped its fan with a noctua one.)
  - nagisa 11mo ago
    I always buy the cheapest PWM fans available in a nearby store (so usually Arctic) and I never had one fan fail on me in my life. They almost never run 100%, though, and I have a recurring task set up to clean dust outta my filters, computers and servers.
    - Marsymars 11mo ago
- jhgb 11mo ago
  Don't use an SD card, then. It's that simple.
xandrius 11mo ago
I have fans for the early 00s. Also a fan is like $10? Things which are more vital than that are the disks, power supply, rams.

Unfortunately PCs have mechanical devices that give out after a few years. I am referring of course to fans. I use a Raspberry Pi 4 running Ubuntu and Samba as my NAS. It is cheap and reliable.

eloisius 11mo ago

I do too, but I’m looking to get proper solution soon. A Pi is a pretty lousy NAS. It can’t even power two drives so you can’t have redundancy unless you get a powered USB hub. And even then, I used one of those for a while and the drive connected to it prematurely failed. I think maybe because the power supply wasn’t stable.

GlibMonkeyDeath 11mo ago
I have a Pi4 running Raid 1 NAS with two SSD drives, and an externally powered USB hub. Unfortunately, it crashes every 6 months or so and needs a power cycle. Haven't been able to track down why, but I also suspect a power supply issue. Initially I naively tried to run the two drives right off the USB3 ports in the Pi, and that basically crashed within a day - but that is of course because I was exceeding the power draw. An external hub and supply helped, but didn't fully fix the issue.
lateforwork 11mo ago
I use a powered USB hub, haven't had a problem in 5 years.

strken 11mo ago

I've had more SD cards die on me than fans. I don't think any have died in the past five years, even.

PaulHoule 11mo ago
I can’t remember replacing fans because they stopped spinning but I have EOLed them because the bearings went bad and they started to screech.
gilrain 11mo ago
Is there a particular brand you buy? Mine always fail after about 5 years… and I try a new brand each time. Not cheap fans, either; usually $15-20 per 120mm unit.
- type0 11mo ago
  I tried using different sd cards with RPi but kept having issues with broken filesystem few months after, it was probably caused by bad power supply and electric surges.
  - jhgb 11mo ago
    You don't HAVE to boot RPi4+ from an SD card. RPi4 and RPi5 can boot from an external SSD just fine. I don't recall the last time I used an SD card in an RPi but it must have been years.
    - type0 11mo ago
      Yeah, that's what i have done, but it becomes bulky which doesn't always fits the project
- baq 11mo ago
  Noctua, but $20 might not be enough for the cheapest one depending where you live. I’m not buying anything else and I’m also swapping out any non-noctua fan in my parts when possible (e.g. bought a scythe cooler due to ‘interesting’ dimensional constraints and swapped its fan with a noctua one.)
- nagisa 11mo ago
  I always buy the cheapest PWM fans available in a nearby store (so usually Arctic) and I never had one fan fail on me in my life. They almost never run 100%, though, and I have a recurring task set up to clean dust outta my filters, computers and servers.
  - Marsymars 11mo ago
jhgb 11mo ago
Don't use an SD card, then. It's that simple.

xandrius 11mo ago

I have fans for the early 00s. Also a fan is like $10? Things which are more vital than that are the disks, power supply, rams.