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Comment by strenholme | Hacker News Reader

For using the Pi as a mini-NAS, what I would like to see is a case with:

• A place for the Pi with appropriate cooling for the Model B CPU

• The two USB-to-SATA cables we will need

• Slots large enough to fit 3.5" drives. For NAS purposes, HDDs still make more sense than SSD, since the max capacity for a single SATA SSD drive is 8tb, but HDDs can store 18tb.

• A box that the entire setup goes in to.

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At this price point you might as well just get those tiny business computers.

Thinkcentre tiny, optiplex, elite desk etc.

I'd like to see a NAS case where you can simply embed the Pi 4 of your choice (not everyone need the 8GB version), include a PSU that provide power to the Pi and additional power for 3.5" HDDs and the fans, as well as keep the internal cabling as neat as possible, while offering all the Pi I/O available in the back (preferably make the video output two full-size HDMI.

It’s only 1 SSD sized SATA disk, but there is this (which, yes, makes full sized HDMI ports and puts all the ports on one side)

https://www.argon40.com/argon-one-m-2-case-for-raspberry-pi-...

I was aware of this one and I'll probably go with this, but I'd really prefer an "all-in-one" form factor of a small NAS without going with a closed-source vendor like Synology.

Aren't you just getting into actual NAS prices at that point?

The advantage of the Pi here is that we also have an internal web server, DNS server, Linux build server, desktop computer, etc.

Look at HP Microservers. They're a nice package and get you ECC too. At least some NAS models can have a normal Linux distro installed as well. And if you're homebrewing a small ITX case will probably be great too. AMD has some parts that are specific to that market that look interesting.

I'd love some NAS hardware that is low power and can run a few Docker containers.

Synology 918+, (and presumably the very similar 1019+ and 920+) is great for this - at a fairly steep price. It really does 'just work'. I added more ram to take it to 12gb so that the containers had plenty of headroom.

Arm processors are more energy efficient.

Most synology NASs run similar software, so you can buy an ARM one to do something similar.

Other people recommended this to me when I was building a tiny home server, but it’s really not in the same league as a Raspberry Pi, 2-bay NAS or i3 NUC. It’s a real server, which is 4 times the size and can draw 10 times as much power.

I was going to say this also. I actually have one of the older ones, it's relatively massive and also relatively very noisy.

I believe Synology NAS units support most of that. The price may not be comparable to something you could build yourself, but for those that want a turnkey solution, it's a viable option.

I tried to use a RPi for a NAS for the same reasons... but ended up breaking down and buying a proper NAS (QNAP in my case).

And yes, you definitely get those extras. Mine also hosts a few virtual machines. The difference in speed and power is significant. But really, the bigger bonus to me is the stability. The RPi solution wasn’t nearly as stable. Yes, it costs more, but after all the extras like powered USB hubs, etc... it wasn’t that much more.

Most NAS on the market are built around an ARM SBC with similar or better compute specs to the RPi and run Linux (often Debian). Honestly I think the Synology NAS even has a bigger and more helpful community for running these kinds of applications than the RPi does. There are also some more tinkerer-oriented NAS products such as the Kobol Helios machines that even offer GPIO - but also USB-C direct-attached storage and 2x gigabit (or better) ethernet interfaces, in the most recent model. When you consider the additional pain point of dealing with USB SATA controllers, I'm not convinced the RPi would ever be a good choice for a NAS or home server unless you were choosing it strictly for price reasons - NAS features like a good enclosure and drive management are unfortunately very steeply priced compared to the RPi, with commercial products often running $600 and up... although the Kobol products are very attractively priced, at the cost of very long fulfillment times since they run on preorders.

A Synology unit can do all that, will be more reliable, and will outperform the Pi at similar price points when accounting for storage needs. Not to mention I would trust the Synology unit WAY more than a Pi.

I am working on something like this. Planning to design a 2U size case with enough room for multiple Pis an drives, quiet cooling (low rpm). My aim is to have 16T in one box.

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