Re: [gentoo-user] NAS and replacing with larger drives

[Frank Steinmetzger]

Am Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 05:30:18PM -0600 schrieb Dale:

> > I use USB3 hard drives on Pis for my bulk storage because I care about
> > capacity far more than performance, and with a distributed filesystem
> > the performance is still good enough for what I'm doing.  If I needed
> > block storage for containers/VMs/whatever then use a different
> > solution, but that gets expensive fast.
> > […]
>
> From my understanding, you are right about USB3 and GB ethernet being
> the big change.  They also have more memory and faster CPUs but if you
> bottleneck the data with slow USB and ethernet with the old ones, who
> needs a fast CPU?  I think they realized that the USB and ethernet had
> to improve.  It got better from there. 
>
> https://shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/sata-hat/products/dual-sata-hat-open-frame-for-raspberry-pi-4
>
> I found the above.  From my understanding, it allows a SATA drive to
> connect to either 2 or 4 bays.

Looking at the pics, it looks all very wibbly-wobbly. You will either have
the parts lying around open on a desk or you need to find a case for all
that stuff which adheres to no industry standard form factor. Pi accessories
are quite hard to come by, since they’re often sold out.

> One thing I like about the Raspberry option, I can upgrade it later.  I
> can simply take out the old, put in new, upgrade done.  If I buy a
> prebuilt NAS, they pretty much are what they are if upgrading isn't a
> option.

If you just do storage, what do you need upgrades for, anyway? All it needs
to do is receive your data and write it to disk. And then return it later
when asked for. I don’t remember you mentioning running VMs or some such.
Any current commercial NAS has enough oomph for that, unless it’s a very
cheap ARM-based one. (Only the ecryption part remains to be solved with a
ready-made NAS.)

> I just wonder, could I use that board and just hook it to my USB port
> and a external power supply and skip the Raspberry Pi part?  I'd bet not
> tho.  ;-)

From a practical standpoint, what is the difference then to an HDD dock or a
simple USB-SATA-Adapter? Except that a dock is a “proper”, clean solution
with a nice case, a secure stand on your desk and no finnicky open SATA
cables that could cause disconnects during operation if you touch them the
wrong way.

I know what it’s like to ponder all kinds of options, and it’s fun. But it
seems to me, you’re looking for a solution for a problem you’re still
looking for.

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