My intent for the NAS was to create a low cost / low power device to store a backup of digital pictures. My setup is:
- Raspberry PI Model B - Over clocked at 900 MHz
- 7 port powered USB hub
- 2 Toshiba 1 TB USB drives
- SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16 GB USB Flash Drive for the file system
- Class 10 SD Card
 |
| Raspberry PI NAS |
There are many websites that already exist for setting up a Raspberry PI NAS so I will not duplicate the steps here; however, these are some very helpful links.
- Setup SSH
- Move files system from the SD card to USB thumb drive
- Setting up the USB drives and Samba
- Mounting the USB drives by UUID
- Formatting the USB drive as ext3
- Updating Raspbian
After combing through all of the information out on the web I first formatted the two USB drives as NTFS. This was so the drives could be easily plugged into a Windows (or Mac) should the Raspberry PI fail. After some initial tests I was not thrilled with the throughput writing to the USB drive. I did notice that the ntfs-3g driver was CPU intensive (~40%). After reformatting the USB drive as ext3 I reran the test at 900 MHz and was pleasantly surprised at the write time performance increase.
RPI w/ NTFS @ 900 MHz - 2.35 MB/s (18.8 Mb/s)
RPI w/ NTFS @ 900 MHz - 2.63 MB/s (21.04 Mb/s)
RPI w/ ext3 @ 900 MHz - 6.26 MB/s (50.08 Mb/s)
Due to the limitations of the USB bus on the Raspberry PI you will not see anything near the theoritical maximum throughput but I was more than happy to achieve 6.26 MB/s (50.08 Mb/s) throughput writing to the USB drive.
A cronjob can be used to rsync the contents of the first USB drive to the second drive (instructions in Setting up the USB drives and Samba). The second frive provides some added reliability for the data storage. You could also use a third USB drive and manually mount it, rsync, un0mount and store the drive in off-site or on-site fire / water safe storage.
To move the files from a Windows machine to the RPI NAS rsync for Windows can be used. Mac has rsync packaged with OSX which will make easier to copy data to the PI without the need for a third party application.
As always YMMV but for a small, low cost, low power consumption NAS the Raspberry PI with two USB drives suits my backup needs.
Thank you for the post! Do you think you would be able to have a second off site Pi-NAS that you could rsync to via the internet? Have you found ways to do this?
ReplyDeleteHaving a knowledge about anything is an important and to do this, you are required with its information tools. To deal with a concept of information internet is considered to be the best source. Working with an internet demands speed, which is checked by a Speed Test, a test used to check the speed of an internet.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. It helps to explain complicated things to people who are not competent and explicate why this is important.
ReplyDeleteelectronic data room
NAS remains for Network Attached Storage and these kinds of capacity frameworks have turned out to be increasingly famous as answers for the consistently expanding requests for more hard drive limit. how to choose NAS Device for Plex
ReplyDeleteAs a computer data storage that links to a computer network, a cheap NAS becomes a necessity for homeowners who require large data storage device and business owners who are in need of a network for file sharing.hard drive recovery
ReplyDeleteThere might be an issue with the hard drive or some other segment of the capacity media. hard drive recovery
ReplyDeleteBefore you organize a Virtual Private Server of your own, you might need to take shortly about what this sort of framework can improve the situation you. astral servers
ReplyDeleteThese procedures are exceptionally included and require capable, educated specialists, as well as a broad stock of plate drives to use for parts when fundamental and clean offices to lead the work. hard drive recovery
ReplyDeleteThe valuable data held inside the folds of the platters is gotten to by the actuator arm. At the point when the hard drive works typically, every one of these parts meet up in immaculate concordance. data recovery lab
ReplyDeleteSavaliya Oil Maker Machine for Home Usage. This Product is Easy to Use and it produces health oil for your family. There are also some other products of savaliya industry, like coconut oil maker machine, peanut oil maker machine, sesame oil maker machine.
ReplyDelete