Raspberry Pi Server - Other Alternatives.

Hi Enrico,

I have DS110+ but there are probably newer replacement models now.

Thank you it seems a bit expansive but it is already on the market. It sounds a good machine.

me and my wife have bought a WD EX4 personal cloud with 16 TB and it works fine by about 1.5 years. We saw this in action in Jan 2014 at CES Las Vegas then as it was available on Amazon we bought one. It is perfect also with NAT and its own (sort of) Dynamics DNS so we can reach it from any mobile.

Enrico

Yeah, sometimes 'known working' is more convenient that build-your-own.

Features like GigEth was more expensive when I got mine.

Yours has higher specs like the dual GigEth.

Here we have a huge amount of data, as books, video productions (with digital masters that consume giga that you have no idea) and more. Then, making tons of new stuff almost daily, the need is to work with a reliable and affordable infrastructure.

I'm pumping 4K video all over my network I've channel bonded 4 x Gig E for that purpose.

Waiting for a cheap 10 G card and Switch

Are you using this in a business environment  then Enrico?

Hi Omar,

in theory yes. I mean. I make video productions so all history of digital masters as backed up on the server, all the development projects too, all the CAD design and documentation, e-book and more personal data files. Then as photographer all the original RAW images are on the device. My wife is translator and all her 15 years of works history is backed up.

After we bought the NAS from WD, we managed it for a couple of months to be sure it was perfectly working, stable and reliable. Then during another couple of months moved all the live backup on the NAS that has the advantage to be always live and simple to mount both under Mac and Windows machines. Has a good web access a linux internal SSD and is really stable. The only add-on I have put to it is a backup battery that is recognised by the NAS automatically and start a shutdown when battery goes too low.

There are two networks, one small in the room where we work that is connected to a 1Gb mini switch to which the working machines and NAS are connected with cables. Then there is a WiFi on the ADSL and the ADSL router (10.100 only) is connected to the 10/100/1Gb switch). The NAS has a dual network board so I have configured them with a single IP address both balances in XOR mode (Round Robin is available too but is more reliable and recommended for DNS machines). So we have a very fast access to the NAS as well as the wider band to the Internet. To go faster, every machine (we work on Macs) has both network 1Gb and Wifi connected so there is a good local band and we use Internet at the higher actually available speed (2 Mbytes) on the Island. NAS too has a NAT with dynamic DNS so we access remotely to it, I can create temporary users for access and more from remote (tablet, mobile etc.) Very useful also for accessing documentation when needed from where it is needed.

I was surprised that the NAS (excludied the HDD) was sold at a price around 400Euros, really affordable for the supported features.

Enrico

HI Omar,

Here is my take on the whole thing.

If you need a solution for connecting a storage to the network and nothing more, I would suggest you get a NAS system which will save you stress medicine later Those things are cheap and they are usually solid and no mater how much you may want to use that old PC for a NAS box, I think the power consumption on the readymade solution and the ergonomics are MUCH better.

IF you feel you want something to tinker with, then you may move towards the likes of Rapsberry Pi, RPi2, Intel Galileo Or even a CubieTruck.

The cubie truck has SATA interfaces to connect hard drives and can run linux and android as well.

I am personally using an Intel Galileo for a home automation system running OpenHAB as a primary sink. All logs and swap file are disabled to prolong memcard life and data persistance is accomplished using google drive

I am using an old windows machine for a NAS system right now because it also functions as a test bed for some windows xp experiments hence the extra space is justified.

If you are just interested in having an Android based system then my suggestion would be to buy the UTRA CHEAP tablets(I have a Datawind 7inch for less than 50 dollars) and root it. enable USB thumb drive support and run your android sharing apps from there.

Hope this helps

Cheers,

IP

If you need to run several disks you may as well use a minit itx or a normal board and have all the advantages also a big cheap case and PSU

There is no advantage of using the  RPI or the little stuff PCs are so cheap and easy

Well the Pi advantage is cost.  a MiniITX board is what $50, then some ram, power supply, case, etc.  $100-150 for a minimal system compared to $50 for the Pi.  I have an old mini-itx board I used before my last server and had maybe $200 in it.  I was looking at them before the RP2 was released.  and it was just the more $ and bigger.