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Why would you need two 3.5" drives on a Pi? It would not make a very special NAS or small server, as you access the drives trough USB, sharing it with everythin

by miahi 13y ago

Why would you need two 3.5" drives on a Pi? It would not make a very special NAS or small server, as you access the drives trough USB, sharing it with everything else - LAN and any other things you want to add. Yes, it's cheap and cheap to run, but also very slow and hard to maintain.

talkingquickly 13y ago
I've got an rpi running as a NAS with USB External HDD's and it works a treat. Took about half an hour to set up, everyone on the network can access it easily and my WD TV Live will happily play video directly off it without any significant time buffering. Personally haven't had any issues with speed or maintainability, would definitely recommend giving it a go.
mikeash 13y ago
Slow, yes, but probably fast enough for most people. Why would it be hard to maintain?
- miahi 13y ago
  I'm probably some other kind of geek, feeling limited by a Gbit connection to the home NAS. Hard to maintain: not sure about others, but I had stability issues with my Pies using USB devices like wifi adapters, memory sticks and webcams; I would not trust one to store anything important, especially on complex setups: onboard USB -> Powered USB hub -> USB to SATA adapter -> SATA HDD (with external power).
- cbhl 13y ago
  Well, among other things -- the CPU in the Pi is ARMv6 with a hardware FPU. Until the Pi came along, most people compiled either for ARMv6 with no FPU or for ARMv7, so at the beginning you had to compile your own packages if you wanted reasonable performance. Also, the Pi limits power draw to something like 100 mA; if you just plugged in a USB Hard Drive it'd more than likely shut down the entire board (especially in rev1). So you'd need to put a powered hub in the middle...
ersii 13y ago
The previous post did say "something like an" - which I interpret as a low-power, low-cost board (presumably an ARM board), so it doesn't have to be a Raspberry Pi in particular. Well, I'd just like to add that I'd totally buy that! A low-power and low-cost board with two S-ATA connectors and decent-ish performance? I'd fork over for a bunch of them.
- cbhl 13y ago
  You'd probably want something more like a BeagleBoard then, although at that price point a traditional NAS would be cheaper.

by miahi 13y ago

talkingquickly 13y ago

I've got an rpi running as a NAS with USB External HDD's and it works a treat. Took about half an hour to set up, everyone on the network can access it easily and my WD TV Live will happily play video directly off it without any significant time buffering. Personally haven't had any issues with speed or maintainability, would definitely recommend giving it a go.

mikeash 13y ago

Slow, yes, but probably fast enough for most people. Why would it be hard to maintain?

miahi 13y ago
I'm probably some other kind of geek, feeling limited by a Gbit connection to the home NAS. Hard to maintain: not sure about others, but I had stability issues with my Pies using USB devices like wifi adapters, memory sticks and webcams; I would not trust one to store anything important, especially on complex setups: onboard USB -> Powered USB hub -> USB to SATA adapter -> SATA HDD (with external power).
cbhl 13y ago
Well, among other things -- the CPU in the Pi is ARMv6 with a hardware FPU. Until the Pi came along, most people compiled either for ARMv6 with no FPU or for ARMv7, so at the beginning you had to compile your own packages if you wanted reasonable performance. Also, the Pi limits power draw to something like 100 mA; if you just plugged in a USB Hard Drive it'd more than likely shut down the entire board (especially in rev1). So you'd need to put a powered hub in the middle...

ersii 13y ago

The previous post did say "something like an" - which I interpret as a low-power, low-cost board (presumably an ARM board), so it doesn't have to be a Raspberry Pi in particular. Well, I'd just like to add that I'd totally buy that! A low-power and low-cost board with two S-ATA connectors and decent-ish performance? I'd fork over for a bunch of them.

cbhl 13y ago
You'd probably want something more like a BeagleBoard then, although at that price point a traditional NAS would be cheaper.