I 'm thinking about building a FreeNAS box from a Raspberry Pi 2 (the new one), but will it be a...

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

I'm thinking about building a FreeNAS box from a Raspberry Pi 2 (the new one), but will it be able to function on a USB powered HDD. I know the previous gen could supply enough power to spin the disk, but not enough to actually use the HDD. Does anyone know if that's now possible?

 

Or if in fact my idea is even possible?

[G+_Eddie Foy]

Use a powered USB hub.

or

Get a power supply for the Pi with enough current (+20%) to run both.  Use a Y USB cable (the type that has one USB connector for the data and another for additional power.  connect the 'additional' power USB to the power supply.)

 

  I try not to power high consumption devices directly from the Pi (HDs, WiFi, etc.)

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

So Eddie Foy? it would be better to use a traditional external hdd with its own power source?

 

The Pi would work well as a NAS? It would only be accessed by 3 PC's and my home theater. And never likely more than 2 devices at a time.

[G+_Adam EL-Idrissi]

I think you may have better luck with rpi version of debian since from my understanding freenas runs from ram and zfs is also a ram hog. You can use the pi as a headless server w/o a gui and move as much rsm away from the gpu as possible. There are guides for linux rpi nas. Hardware wise,like Eddie mentioned, USB hub. If you're using laptop doves those get power over USB. Desktop drives come with power bricks

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

Thanks Adam EL-Idrissi? that helpful. Still ultra noob with pi's, but I need a cheaper option to a full pc based nas

[G+_Adam EL-Idrissi]

No problem. Here's a Google search with some tutorials and a video.https://www.google.com/search?q=raspberry+pi+2+nas&oq=raspberry+pi+2+nas&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i65j0l3.11266j0j4&client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espv=1&ie=UTF-8

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

Thanks so much!

[G+_Ben Reese]

If it helps, I've seen a lot of people recommend using a powered hub to power the Pi over Micro USB and also use the Pi as the USB host. So, you'd have 2 connections between the Pi and hub. The other ports on the hub can be used for drives, wifi, etc.

[G+_James Hughes]

Eddie Foy? is a WiFi dongle considered a high power consumption device? Might explain the intermittent functioning of the three different ones that I've tried on my pi 2s. Could also be the router from AT&T.

[G+_Eddie Foy]

James Hughes WiFis can be.  My Alphas can be finicky on a single USB port on a Pi.

Darryl Gibbs  it sounded like you were planning on using a 2.5inch HDD. I still would opt for the powered hub.

 

The rasPi B+ and 2's have increased the current of the USB ports, which is a huge plus.

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

Eddie Foy?? using a 2.5 inch drive is what I would like, as I wouldn't have to buy any additional drives. But, if using a fully powered 3.5 inch solution would help overall, then that may be the best solution long term?. Especially since the sole purpose is being a NAS. I don't want to add undue strain to the Pi. And I guess I'll need a bigger drive at some stage, so maybe it's not a bad idea

[G+_Eddie Foy]

Personally I like the 2.5's for the power consumption and single cord.  3.5's will give a bit better performance and more storage. (but the USB 2 will be the bottleneck.  Years back Linksys had a 'NAS" RJ45 to USB.  Was pretty slow)

[G+_G. Rick Marshall]

Darryl Gibbs I use openmediavault and a 3.5 inch external powered 2TB drive with USB 3.0 cable. You can download the rpi image from their website http://www.openmediavault.org/download.html. Sharing on a windows lan among several computers, some wired on the network, others on WiFi. Works without a hitch once the shares are set properly. 

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

That also sounds great G. Rick Marshall ! thanks.  Any ideas if Home theatres, Playstations and TVs play nice with that also?

[G+_G. Rick Marshall]

Don't know because I don't have a play station and haven't tried home theatre on openmediavault. I do know there are rpi builds for home theatre that work. Wish I could be of more help.

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

You've been a great help G. Rick Marshall?! Thanks!

[G+_Ben Tyger]

Darryl Gibbs? As much as I love RPis, I don't think they make good file servers / NAS. With only a single 100mbit Ethernet port or a wireless NIC that will be competing for bandwidth with the external drive, you can't really expect decent throughput by today's standards.

[G+_Ben Tyger]

Maybe okay for backup storage device.

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

Ben Tyger? it would be predominantly for backup. And maybe to stream videos from to my TV. But the likelihood of having more than one device calling it at any one time is doubtful. Besides my stupid Isp provided router only does 100mbit anyway I think.

 

That should be enough though right? I basically want the storage drive available to everyone without having to physically move it. And this is really my cheapest solution I can think of

[G+_Ben Tyger]

Depends on how you use it? If you are moving large files on and off from your internal LAN you'll see the bottleneck. If most of the work is remote or just small files, you shouldn't see the difference.

[G+_Darryl Gibbs]

This is backup only. Files basically moving in one direction to make backups. I'll read off of it to watch videos if possible