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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Building a NAS...
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
I am just about insane now, trying various NAS software.  To date, I have now tried FreeNAS, OpenMediaVault, Ubuntu Server, XigmaNAS, Puppy with SAMBA and NASlite2. NONE of them - with the exception of NASlite2 - are easy to get going. Most of them require HUGE amounts of RAM to support ZFS, and several complicated steps to just feckin' share some bloody files on the network.   FreeNAS is a pain in the arse to setup, as is OpenMediaVault, with it setting it's default IP address totally outside of the local LAN, so there was no way to talk to the bloody thing. Ubuntu Server is a feckin' full GUI OS just to share files(bah!), XigmaNAS is easy to install and talk to, but insists on ZFS and tons of RAM to make it work(it is also really complicated to just share some bloody files!), Puppy Linux with SAMBA is quite easy to setup and share with, but Windoze flatly refuses to talk to it(other Linux boxes talk to that kind of setup fine), leaving only NASlite2 as a viable SIMPLE alternative. The only problem with NASlite2, is that they charge you $30 for every use of it. Many others have complained about the price of NASlite2 vs free alternatives, but at this point....NASlite2 still holds pole position even though you have to pay for it. The free alternatives are so convoluted and complex as to cause someone like myself - who just wants to share bloody files on the network - to resort to heavy drinking.  Does anyone know of a simple NAS OS that just uses a simple web-interface like NASlite2 does? I am on the verge of buying another NASlite2 licence, but the problem with them, is that it has been YEARS since they released any new version, and development seems to have stopped completely, so that does not inspire confidence. Hell, I need another Black Russian.....(drink) Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5119 |
For my JAQ clients with hosted server, the software lives on a Linux cloud server and my Linux guru set up sshfs to give clients access to a folder. The clients are all windows users and had to install a driver, which lets them map a drive letter using sshfs with a username and password. It works really well, and thats about the extent of my knowledge of it, I just write the software to use it. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| matherp Guru  Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10310 |
I used FreeNAS for years running on an old Dell server. Eventually I realised my room was always warmer than anywhere else in the house - perhaps the 875W power supply in the server and dual 150W TDP processors. I've just replaced it with a Synology box using the old disks. It is so easy to set up and use compared to any of the S/W solutions. I would really recommend you think about something dedicated. |
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CaptainBoing Guru Joined: 07/09/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2170 |
agree with that. lots of RAID-esque hardware solutions, most are plug n play with a bit of the obvious setup. Not terribly popular but I have a Drobo 5N that I got for a song off ebay and popped it with 5xSamsung 2TB disks and it is solid. Transfers across Ethernet are not the best and you need to get the setup right but after that it is mostly forgotten (the sign of good tech) |
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| paceman Guru Joined: 07/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1329 |
+1 for a dedicated Synology box. I bought a DSG101g+ way back, eight or ten years ago and it's still working fine. Synology started off as a group of specialists (South Korean I believe) just to make NAS servers and it shows. As Peter says they're pretty simple to set up, lots of features and reliable. Greg |
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TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6283 |
I took the easy way out and went with a QNAP. Not sure why I went with them instead of Synology - it was a toss-up. Jim VK7JH MMedit |
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Chopperp Guru Joined: 03/01/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1097 |
I've just got a 4TB USB portable HDD plugged into my NBN modem/router. Map it to my PC's etc where needed. Works for what I want it to do. Brian ChopperP |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3378 |
USB HDD plugged into a router was an easy solution for me, but I'm in a different location now, and my Ubuntu-based samba NAS on a bare PC motherboard has died for unknown reasons (after working for years), and it's pretty inaccessable. I tried sharing a folder on an old laptop with a power option of "never off when plugged in", but it still turns itself off (Why?). I plugged a USB HDD into a Dockstar running OpenWrt and went through the Samba setup. Over the network I can see that the drive exists, but it doesn't like my credentials no matter what I do (Why?). I don't like putting my private files on the cloud (though most I would be indifferent about being exposed). Unfortunately, in my present location it's relatively hard to have anything new delivered, unlike in the U.S. where I could have tens of thousands of objects delivered next day, or second day. And harder now with lockdowns. I guess I'll make another attempt at a linux samba solution. PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
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| ceptimus Senior Member  Joined: 05/07/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 130 |
Raspberry Pi with OpenMediaVault. Beginners' guide YouTube video. Low power solution that works great. https://youtu.be/bpvlEbdA6qI |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
Thanks for the replies.  Was a little stressed when I started this thread. At least it is giving me plenty of experience playing about with various Linux systems!  I have also seen videos on YT(you tube) where people are starting to drop FreeNAS as they say that with each new version, it seems to be having increasing stability issues. Can someone link me to the Synergy thing that matherp mentioned above? Well worth checking it out at this stage. I will use Mr. Google in the meantime. @ ceptimus: Tried your link, but it appears to be broken. Perhaps you were linking to Explaining Computers and Ian's excellent videos on things like that. I have seen that one where he uses a PI and OMV(open media vault), and perhaps I need to try that again, but I cannot understand why OMV insisted on having an IP address that was outside of my 192.168.1.xxx LAN, so I could not ping it nor could I talk to it with a web browser. It assigned it 169.254.185.209 - WTF?! The other thing I really hate about full-featured NAS software, is that they try to squeeze as many features into it as possible - which is normally a good thing, but for people like me, who just want to share files, there is no SIMPLE auto-setup option or something, so you have to start learning about configuring ZFS, RAID arrays, disk-pools, then on to user accounts, passwords and permissions etc, etc, etc..... Agggggghhhhhh! I don't CARE about any of that, I just want a painless way to share files across the home network - that's it. Let me be clear: I DO understand the need for all those features if you were setting up a NAS for a small business or something. In that case, you WANT multiple users and access permissions, and RAID or ZFS to protect in case of a drive failure, so I know WHY they do it that way, but for those like me who just want to share files and don't really care if any one drive dies(cos we have backups).... That's why NASLite2 still have my vote, because I already have one of those setup that has been running 24/7 for ages, and never gives a problem. Even WINDOZE TEN can easily see that one, and can map the drives easy - they just show up in NETWORK NEIGHBOURHOOD. But I am uneasy about buying another license for NASLite2, cos as I mentioned above, they seem to have stopped developing it. Latest replies from the developers on their forum was in 2007, so..... That also worries me cos you have to activate with a code from their website, and if they one day disappear, you have a NAS you can't reactivate later if you need to rebuild. Puppy does not show up in network neighbourhood in W10 without a fight. You can USUALLY force W10 to see a Puppy samba server by using the IP address of the Puppy box such as: //192.168.1.204/puppyshare/mnt/sda1 kind of thing. Looking for the Puppy box in network neighbourhood in windows ten invariably results in Bill(Gates) saying he can't find that machine. That CAN be a good thing, cos then the server is not discoverable, unless you know EXACTLY where it is on the network, so it kinda protects itself if you see what I mean!  I might have another go with Puppy on another PC, as I seem to recall that with Puppy, it was quite simple, really. Install Puppy, set a static IP address, use the built-in samba management tool to share the HDD's, reboot, ping it from W10 to make sure W10 can see it, then map as above with the IP address. Simple, reasonably painless, "Self-hiding" to W10 , no ZFS, no need for heaps of RAM, no RAID or disk-pooling to setup, no user accounts except for a basic connection password....easy.Or, about as easy as it gets so it would seem, and Puppy Linux is free. True - no ZFS, RAID or pooled disk array etc means it is more vulnerable to a disk failure, but I prefer to take that risk rather then fight the bigger NAS softwares. The KISS approach to a home NAS. Blah, blah, blah.....sorry.  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6283 |
Try with the correct spelling: https://www.synology.com/en-au/support/nas_selector The two main small business NAS suppliers are Synology and QNAP You can buy the box without drives and add whatever size/configuration you require. I went with a two bay QNAP unit but only have one drive at the moment. Jim VK7JH MMedit |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
Thanks. Looked them up. They are quite costly, considering they come with no HDD's.... I have got a copy of Puppy talking to W10 this afternoon to kill some time in lockdown:  I just threw a spare 250GB WD Blue drive on the machine for testing purposes. Happily, W10 picked up on THIS Puppy build right away in network neighbourhood. This is the latest Slacko Puppy 6.3.2, and I note differences in the icons, background, and that Samba Simple Management now lets you set the workgroup, which I don't THINK earlier versions of this Puppy did. Perhaps that was why it was so hard to see the share in W10, as without the workgroup being the same as all the other PC's, Windoze just does not think it is SUPPOSED to be a part of this network group.  I have reset the Puppy AND Samba passwords from the defaults shown in the image above, confirmed by my being prompted for those by Windoze, and it accepting those new ones. This required use of the scary Linux console, but I am getting less frightened of the console, the more I use it. I just know that you can do very destructive things in the console if you are sure about what you are doing. But then, the same could be said of Windoze command-prompt and diskpart or format commands with switches set to no prompting, so.... Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4044 |
About "the scary Linux console". You're not being daft, because the very time you'd be using it is as root to do something potentially dangerous. The 2 main things I can instantly think of to be most careful about: 1. the big one: be very careful if you use a * (asterisk, meaning wildcard) 2. take care to type the command name correctly #2 isn't as big a risk because a typo (or just automatically using the Windows name instead of the Linux one) probably gets you an error message and you can have another go. #1 is particularly risky if you manage to type a space in front of the * where you didn't mean to, because then instead of file* matching all file names starting with the word to the left (here, file), accidentally typing file * will maybe not match anything (well, it will if you have one actually called file) and then ALSO match ALL files (because that's what * on its own does). It's not a big risk if you take care with *. John |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
I have written a step-by-step for turning a Puppy box into a simple Samba server to share files, based on what I have learnt from all this playing about. Puppy Linux Server Setup Steps 1B.pdf This simple one-page PDF shows how to set everything up to make it talk to Windoze machines. If I have missed anything, please let me know. This PDF DOES expect that the user is at least familiar with basic Linux terms and operations. If you are NOT, then a much more detailed PDF or video could be created showing you how to do it. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| ceptimus Senior Member Joined: 05/07/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 130 |
Sorry - I accidentally allowed the forum software to insert an extra http:// in front of the existing https:// Yes, it was Chris Barnett (explainingcomputers.com) explaining how to set up Open Media Vault on the Raspberry Pi. I've formatted the link properly below. YouTube video link . Edited 2020-04-24 19:35 by ceptimus |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5089 |
Hi Grogster, What puppy flavor does your setup refer to? D-pup 8.0 ? Not all puppies have samba, and you may need to install from repository (ibiblio). And then it does not come with the GUI, making setup more difficult. Volhout P.S. In puppy linux you are root as default. This may be a security issue, since you only rely on the samba password security. PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
@ ceptimus: Yes, that was the video. I also got his name wrong. Chris, not Ian. @ Volhout: I used the latest Slacko 6.3.2 distro. Yes, earlier ones did not include the excellent Simple Samba Management utility. Any of the recent ones have it though, including Bionic Pup 8.0 I just used the Slacko one, as it was one I THOUGHT I was familiar with, but the latest version has changed several of the GUI aspects, so I probably should have just used Bionic64!  This one is only an experiment anyway, so it won't be getting kept, as I was just playing about with Samba vs W10 etc and sharing files. Yes, always root in Puppy, so as you say - only the Samba password needed, but that keeps it simple and easy, and with a decent alpha-numeric password, I feel that is fine for a home server. I keep my AV and Malware Bytes up to date, and have scheduled scans so I feel REASONABLY confident no-one other then me here at home can get access to it. The NASLite2 box has no passwords at all. If you can find the server, you can access it, so the Puppy one with at least ONE password level of protection means it is actually more secure then the NASLite2 one! Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
UPDATE: I have installed Puppy Linux (Slacko64 6.3.2) on a different computer, but kept the network specs the same as the experiment I ran the other day, and W10 has no problem seeing it. I have no HDD's on this box yet, but W10 can see the shares.  ...and the 'shares' folder opened:  Note that there is no /mnt folder here, as I don't have any HDD's connected, this system is just running from the USB flash drive. EDIT: Fix formatting. Edited 2020-04-25 19:25 by Grogster Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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