One of the most popular projects you can do with a Raspberry Pi is to set up your own NAS . And now that the newest model with 2GB of RAM has dropped in price even more. Because you take advantage of the power and improvements at the level of connections it offers. So, let’s do it.
Why create a NAS with a Raspberry Pi
Taking into account the variety of NAS models of brands such as Synology, QNAP or ASUSTOR among others that exist and the prices of these, why it would be interesting to set up your own NAS. Let’s see the pros and cons.
If you do not want to complicate, avoid possible setbacks and have a product, say, well finished it is clear that the best option is to opt for one of the commercial NAS that you can find already in the market. In addition, these offer consolidated software and applications.
However, the main problem with these NAS solutions is that you must choose very well which model to buy. Because it is usual to opt for a model that then falls short or offers more than you really need, so it does not compensate for your investment.
By setting up your own NAS, you have the freedom to expand or not when you need it, to mess up everything you need and assess whether, in the future, the purchase of a NAS would be interesting or not for you.
If you add to this that creating your own NAS with a Raspberry Pi is cheaper, I think you don’t need to continue giving more reasons to at least try the experience.
How to create your own NAS with the Raspberry Pi 4
To mount your own NAS, the first thing you need to know is what you will need, both at the software and hardware level. The basic requirements are:
- Raspberry Pi . The model doesn’t matter, but the more recent the better. The Raspberry Pi 4 with 2 GB of RAM is a great option right now.
- USB storage drives If you want to connect several you will have to resort to a HUB.
- Depending on the Raspberry Pi model, ethernet cable to connect when breaking (recommended option) or Wifi adapter to do it wirelessly.
- SD or microSD card for software installation
- If you want to raise the level, there are some boards that add SATA connections to the Raspberry Pi
When you have everything you need, the next step is to download the software you will use to mount the NAS. OpenMediaVault is the distribution focused on this task of setting up your own NAS.
The software installation process is not complex, and with applications such as ApplePi-Backer or BerryBoot it is a matter of following a few simple steps and you will have it. Once done, insert the card into the Raspberry Pi, connect the USB disks and turn it on.
From that moment, the following steps will already be performed in the OpenMediaVault web interface itself. To know the IP assigned to the Raspberry Pi there are many options, but if you have an Android terminal there is a very simple application to use called Network Discovery .
As with Synology or QNAP solutions, it is a matter of accessing the different options to configure what type of drive you are going to create (RAID 0, 1, JBOD, etc …). You can also set users, permissions and make use of some utilities that allow you to share multimedia content with other computers, make remote backups , etc.
In the same way that it happens with the options of the commercial NAS, with OpenMediaVault you will also have many possibilities that you will have to investigate to see which are interesting or not in your day to day. And if, by any chance you see that a NAS is not for you, you just have to erase the system, install another distribution and reuse the Raspberry Pi for whatever you want. So, more profitable than investing in a NAS and then left unused we believe it is.
