Ive been seeing several Youtube videos about the new Raspberry Pi 3 B+ being used as a NAS with O...

[G+_Nolan T]

Ive been seeing several Youtube videos about the new Raspberry Pi 3 B+ being used as a NAS with Openmediavault.

Has anyone here used this combo? I would love to hear Padre's take on it

Thanks

[G+_Ben Reese]

Fran Michalak did you use Openmediavault for your Pi NAS?

[G+_Nolan T]

Ben Reese No I don't right now, I was just looking for a cheaper solution to hold my movies to use a Plex server, which does come as a plugin on the Opemmediavault software.

right now I just have a 2TB removeable drive plugged into the USB port on my router, but Ive filled that drive up and buying or building NAS is a bit prohibitive for me in the money situation.

$40 for a Pi and maybe $120 or so for a 4TB external drive is a lot better than anything else.

I dont use high rez Blueray or 4K rips or have more than one or two people streaming at one time.

I was wondering if a Pi would do the duty for this

[G+_Patrick Godbey]

PI can run Plex but can't or is very not good at transcoding streams.

[G+_Paul Hutchinson]

My experience is that a PI is not as good substitute for even a low cost NAS. So if I was in your situation I'd save the $35 (plus, $20 for a good housing and power supply) and first try just upgrading the drive on the router. If that doesn't work for you then you have the bigger drive and can try out a Pi based solution.

[G+_Fran Michalak]

Ben Reese no I did not use openmediavault.

 

My hdd mounts on bootup. I could. Look back at my notes if anyone is interested how I did mine.

[G+_Jason Marsh]

If your current setup works, but is just getting full, then I'd recommend just upgrading the storage. 4TB externals don't cost too much, but you may be able to upgrade the drive in your USB HDD enclosure for even less. Back in the day I did this to upgrade the storage on my NAS and it worked fine. The enclosure didn't care and I was able to save a little buying bare drives and installing them into the enclosures of my WD external drives.

 

If you're looking to add function, then I'd suggest you pony up for or build a decent (Intel-based) NAS/Server and get your media-serving onto a separate device from your packet-routing.

[G+_Nolan T]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I'll use what I have right now and save up for a larger hard drive. I may get the Pi 3 B+ and do some testing to see how it works in my situation with a extra smaller 1TB drive that I have. I'm nervous to try it on the full 2TB drive in case I screw something up and have to re-rip the 1,000 dvds that I have. But such is the life of a tinkerer. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[G+_Jason Marsh]

Nolan T Ten years ago I had an unfortunate incident wherein I had to start over from scratch. Sucks.

 

Backup, backup, backup!!! You'll be much happier knowing a single point of failure isn't taking out your only copy of hundreds of hours' work.

 

As an aside, what model router are you using? Do you keep it's firmware updated? Have you tried getting in/attacking from the WAN side to see whether your data on the LAN is safe? I recall there were a few vulnerabilities discussed over the last couple years that involved USB storage on consumer routers...

[G+_Nolan T]

Jason Marsh I have a Linksys router, not sure of the actual model number but it only updated once when I first plugged it in and set it up. Its been about a year or so, but Im not too sure Ill ever get another update. Im sure Ill probably have to get a better one sooner or later. I'm not going to be allowing any access to the movies from the outside, just in my network... my internet connection ( Hughesnet satellite) has very low bandwidth cap. 10Gbps a month during most of the day and 50Gbps a month for a mere 6 hours a day ( 2am to 8am.. whoopty doo!)

[G+_Jason Marsh]

If it's got autoupdate, perhaps it has updated on it's own and you didn't notice. You should be able to get the model off the sticker on the router and check for updates at the MFR's website; compare the version found there to what your router is reporting. I'd be looking to replace a router that hadn't had an available update in a year or more. If it is actually up-to-date you should be fine.

 

Wow, with a connection like that, I'd be setting up a downloader to run from 02 to 08 daily to get all those 50GB of "nights and weekends" data. And probably start working on a wireless solution to connect to the nearest place with decent internet. I love living in the countryside, but I couldn't survive on satellite.

[G+_Nolan T]

Jason Marsh Im an early riser through the week , 4:30 am to get ready for the 40minute commute to start work at 7am... so on my off days Im up around 5-6ish and I do most of my heavy downloading then.

Im out in the country and the nearest wireless location is McDonalds about 15 miles away, We used to have dialup so the Hughesnet is better... just not great.

I work in a call center and we have good speed, but there is NO wireless and bringing in your own laptop is forbidden. I used to get most of my internet usage at work anyways before we got the Hughesnet