Building a Raspberry-Pi Storage Server with OpenMediaVault

This video is the first of several low-energy server ideas I'll be showing off. This time around, we explore the setup of a storage server, but on a Raspberry Pi. This will greatly decrease power-usage. OpenMediaVault will be installed on the Raspberry Pi, and you'll see the entire process in this video.
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[@bsdaiwa]

Where is the link to the Wiki article?

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Sorry, I was very late getting that started. Here it is: wiki.learnlinux.tv/index.php/Building_a_Raspberry-Pi_Storage_Server_with_OpenMediaVault

[@kevinxxx1387]

@@LearnLinuxTV If it isn't one...thing, it's another. I followed this video and ran the install script before. I ordered another X829 card to add two more hard drives; today 25 SEP 90 the script doesn't work.

[@larrywilliams8010]

I like that you included information about enabling ssh and defining a wifi connection before first boot. It took me a while to locate those solutions when I experimented with a Pi NAS, so thank you for including that here.

[@JasonBillingham]

I recently bought a NAS, but this video has helped me to build a Raspberry Pi OMV as a backup destination (with USB hard drives). Thanks for all of your fantastic content!

[@kevinxxx1387]

Thank you, Jay! I heard of homelab several times before I learned what it is about, and it's something I hadn't considered. I already knew I intended to use Raspberry Pis for NAS, video surveillance, a Unifi controller, and I have several. Due to your satisfaction with Linode, I'm opening an account there and getting started. WRT the NAS, I investigated Geekworm and am ordering an X829-C1, two X829 twin hard drive boards and an X735 power board to complete a one- or two-box NAS. Thank you again!

[@sharaaznoormahomed1822]

Thank you so much for your time and effort , have been trying create success nas for weeks .

[@timb4655]

Thank you for doing this. I will be interested in building one of these sometime soon but want to get a little more confident with both Pi & Mint before hand. So please to have found your channel recently!

[@Poo0fi]

This is fantastic for an utter novice like me who wants to get into this but is so intimidated. I plan to try to learn to run some applications via Docker on Openmediavault too and this is really helpful to get me started. Thanks!

[@GUNNER_78]

Great timing on this. I use freenas at home on dell server BUT I want to use OMV on an rPi with an external hard drive then sync up my media shares for use in my RV. Thanks for the video!

[@fvgoya]

Nice content! Anything related to Raspberry Pi is awesome and very welcome. Thanks!

[@hrmisolutionsltd3617]

Very helpful and easy to follow. Thank you.

[@sablesanctum]

Excellent tutorial!

[@donnieb390]

Awesome tutorial, thanks!

[@danroberts7975]

I have been using a pi 3B+ as a wireless mini NAS for a while. I use a flash drive for storage, Rasbian for OS, RaspAP for wireless function, and Samba for share management. I can connect internet in to the RJ-45 port and still use it as a router if I want but I mainly use it to wirelessly backup my phone.

[@FF7824]

Nicely done. Thanks!

[@TheBradPicklerChannel]

Very good video, man!

[@ResingBoi]

Awesome!!! Thank you!

[@AlbertoArbelo]

Great video! Done with a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B connected to 100 Mbit/s Ethernet and a WD Elements USB HDD. It works fantastic for my home needs!!!

[@NoizCode]

For your setup, does your WD USB HDD have an external power supply or is it being powered from a USB port on the Raspberry PI 2 B?

[@AlbertoArbelo]

@@NoizCode Hi. No additional power supply. It runs just powered from one of the Raspberry Pi’s USB 2.0 port, and no issues till now. Recently I tried to add a second WD USB disk, and it did not work -> the Pi seems to have enough power to run one such HDD, but not two.

[@NoizCode]

@@AlbertoArbelo thanks so much Alberto!

[@dmasb]

Thank you!!!

[@meghnathdey9089]

Thank you so much!

[@mattt1519]

Setting up a house NAS on a pi and using your instruction. Thank you Jay for your content. Any chance you could make an Open Media Vault tutorial covering sections on the OMV menu?

[@duke8774]

Cool topic of power consumption and noise. New to Linux. This last week took old Lenovo t530 laptop and created a NAS server with freeNAS. Low power was the goal (20w with broken lcd). Run off usb with 1 tb ssd. Will add another 1tb drive with cdrom adapter. I see you are in MI area. Any Linux events in area or event you frequent? I see I meant this comment on server build. Sorry

[@yorickmeulenbelt4all]

I remember you playing with a cluster of Raspberry's, and noticed the comments asking what you could/or would possibly do with a raspberry cluster, You could perhaps showcase or make a guide on distcc (optionally with Kubernetes and docker) in your cluster, so people might get a better idea of what one might do with a compute cluster or at least inspire them. also, raspberry's can net-boot, negating the need for SD-cards. Furthermore, love the video's, keep up the good work.

[@lovekushkumar6222]

Awesome video

[@BenMitro]

I would have liked to have seen you create a file in the shared folder - that would have completed the video for me! Great vid, again, so thanks.

[@DanCalloway]

Hi Jay. I have my home NAS based on a Raspberry Pi 4 with two SSD's: 120 GB and 240 GB, respectively connected to USB 3 and two spinning SATA III drives: 1TB WD Black and 1TB Baracuda residing in an external dual-bay enclosure connected to USB 3 on my main PC. I configured OMV 5.6.6 on my SBC and now have four separate shared folders: FileStorVol1 - 4 available out on my home network for storing and retrieving files of all types, some in separate shared folders on the separate drives, such as an ISO_Folder share for storing all my ISO files for VM purposes. Thanks for the video as I did learn about the two separate empty files you discussed starting at the 13:35 mark in the video: one for triggering SSH enabling and one for setting up one's Wi-Fi adapter on the SBC if they want to use it. I use hard wired Ethernet connectivity so I don't need it and I, too, setup static IP addressing to ensure the Pi is always available. Thanks, again.

[@BeOurBee]

Well since you invited comments, here's mine. I skipped the SSD and the addon board. Just used some spare 128GB microSD cards in low-profile readers shoved into the USB ports on the Pi 4. I'm "only" using it as a media server, and trying to make sure all the HD videos stay on the USB3.0 ports while music and DVDs go to the USB2.0 ports. I did opt for a passive heatsink case, though. That's the extent of the hardware. So far it's doing everything I need it to. Writing to the cards is slow, but this is a low-write high-read use case.

[@cjlowe1650]

Great video. Everything needed for a NAS. I give it a 4 out of 5! No mention of cooling especially with a Pi 4! Plus with the hat I don't think a fan would fit anyway. You could probably get away with heatsinks only. I like the all in one attachment but I feel an external SSD with a USB is better. I have a SSD case that houses 2 HDD or 2 SSD and makes it look like one volume. But great video otherwise.

[@jayrowe6473]

This is great, thank you for the video. If you ever run across any nice cases to put all that into, do a video review/comparison.

[@legeon007]

Thank so much for this video. I am planning to build this setup for my house. Since I will be using the hard drives to back up my devices is there a firewall that I can also setup in the raspberry pi (or install) to protect the files in all the hard drives that I will connect. Do you have a tutorial that I could follow. Thank you very much.

[@Vito_0912]

When i install OpenMediaVault, overwrite it the normal Operating system.(in my case Raspberrian/Raspberry Desktop or so) or is it only a "service" e.g tvheadend were i can manage it about the Web. Hope you unterstood my question. Sorry for bad English ^^

[@RodolfoRobertoRodriguezOchoa]

Hi Jay, loved the video, the pi nas is a more affordable option at this time instead of the nas server you prepared in other video. Are you considering making a second part to pi nas where you stack up more ssd drives? I am wondering how the usb and power connections will be like. Also what enclosure will you use for this project?

[@CZARNYEU]

How much drives it can support?

[@checknate8820]

how would you attach multiple drives to this setup?

[@TheMounir4]

Could we rely on this nas for storing our data ? Especially with ssd

[@bluesdog88]

Quick one, will a Raspberry Pi NAS box actually encode the video for me like a media centre or is that another project? My HDTV won't play a lot of videos and there aren't any updates for it

[@NavaneethDevaraj]

Great video! Any good enclosure for this ? Also can you make a video to reuse old WD mycloud NAS with debian10/OMV or raspberry/OMV? Like to reuse mine.

[@Kaputznefreble]

@learnLinuxTV could you please make a video focused in OMV? the setup, the basics, how to give permissions, etc? I couldn´t find a good video on that anywhere on youtube

[@laliborio]

How to share the folder via WAN? So I can access it from other connection.

[@bearsdj]

Hi..im looking for those lines to add the WIFI connection please. I'm not seeing them in the wiki

[@jonny777bike]

What type ip do you have from your provider static or dynamic.

[@unknown30204]

what distro do you use?

[@helgeandreasvuolab605]

I wish to know if you can install zfs on openmediavault raspberry pi 4?

[@sagarmakhija1994]

setup was fantastic but what you get the transfer speed?

[@JohnDoe-wi7eb]

Can I set this up so I can access it through the internet remotely ?

[@BrianThomas]

Is the command to install specific to RsPi or can another SBC or minipc to get the same results

[@MarinChanev]

I like the video, but is there some information or next video about the performance? For example is this setup better than Synology 2 bay for example? That would be an interesting to me video. Have a great day.

[@lptechCT]

Nice tutorial. From this point, can we setup Openvpn on it? Thanks.

[@SleepyDioma]

What distro are you using in this video?

[@mohammedkafumbakonneh4781]

i created a raspberry pi 4 nas but I can save nothing into it i have an error that says you need permission to perform this action i'm not sure how to fix it can you please help me

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

Thanks Jay for the video.. I know nothing about PI stuff and have really avoided them as I am not a coder and all that stuff might as well be in baby talk , I don't understand that either.... :- ) This does look like something I can do as there is no programing in valved, basically plug and play and is like a Ubuntu head-less server... That I can do! Lol I am needing to make a back-up server and this looks like it could take the place of a full computer and cost less to run.... LLAP

[@donireland6218]

Since you have to connect this SATA Hat to the Pi via USB, it's essentially a sata/USB adapter. It seems like the performance would not be any better than connecting a USB hard drive to the USB port. Am I missing something?

[@Aemilindore]

It may have been valuable if you did a speed test comparison with FreeNAS.

[@lukaskratochvila396]

Hi Jay, the data transfer speeds are limited by the "USB bridge", right? The purpose of the black board adapter is just to stack SSDs on top of each other and do not have them laying around. So if you connect your SSD with sata 2 USB reduction directly to your RPI USB, speeds would be the same? Anyway your content is awesome.

[@shermintelcorp.8731]

is this recommended over samsungs and sandisks obbi?

[@knjpollard]

To save power on raspi I attached a usb3 powered Device from sabrient that holds either two 2.5 drives or two large SATA drives. You can raid them later in OMV. I plan to add Poe Hat so I didn’t want the pi to have to power drives.

[@shericeking6908]

ssh timed out and i cannot access the portal to login to omv

[@W.A.-Linux]

Thanks dude.

[@TechEnthusiast2050]

I've been interested in a SSD HAT for raspberry pi 3b+ for a long time but it seems that everyone I've seen gets overall unsatisfactory reviews. Unfortunately, the one used here is no exception. Amazon shows 49reviews with a 3 star average and the 1 star reviews are very concerning, even though this tutorial was excellent and appeared to work fine. Any recommendation for an alternative HAT that actually has proper overall ratings?

[@RoborobsComputers]

Curious what kind of performance you are getting out of that system? Also is it possible to use multiple drives and setup a raid array or use zfs?

[@dros4]

Yes it will be interesting Tu use multiple drives

[@sageosaka]

Also curious what kind of performance to expect out of this

[@adamyork2333]

I agree. Would love to see performance info especially with multiple drives.

[@allgame6559]

Where can I order equipment?

[@sebarolo5093]

why you cant use SD drive only without SD card ?

[@stevefoster3005]

I am not seeing my SSD...any ideas ?

[@pepeshopping]

Nice, but what matters with any USB solution is: - Transfer speed. - Durability, as in, will the USB drives disappear after some time/usage??? Test this long term pls.

[@timlist4173]

how about a case to put the hardware in?

[@juliosanfona8456]

I would like some help setting up a remote pi zero camera with cellular connectivity

[@muralidharakowshika8246]

Is there a document made for this project that can be accessed and followed at my own pace without having to go back and forth on the video?

[@LearnLinuxTV]

I didn't get a chance to make a wiki article for this video. I'm almost to the point of asking for volunteers for the wiki but I'm going to try really hard to get my schedule back on track, it's been hectic.

[@sablesanctum]

After updating my Raspberry OS, it is no longer possible to connect to it via ssh or the omv administration panel. "Temporary failure in name resolution".

[@BeOurBee]

Sounds like it got a different IP address from the router after the reboot. Make sure it has the same IP address as before; if not, try connecting with the new one.

[@remmidy2603]

Hey just a question can I use the Nas for virtual machines

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Not with the Pi, but you can get containers running though.

[@yv6eda]

Great tutorial! Thanks! You don't mention which pi you use but looks like the 4. May I use the board on a pi 2 or 3?

[@TerraRiley]

Love to hear about anyone's setup or case- I'd like to make it pretty and I'm trying not to spend $140 on the GeeekPi set-up!

[@Xiefux]

seems good, i will try this with 2 wd red 4tb drives in raid

[@Xiefux]

guess raid doesnt work on this because of usb?

[@vladimirvlad2563]

Raspberry Pi 4 2 GB with 1 TB usb3 Toshiba hdd.Works flawlessly.4k movies on 1gb ethernet.

[@Duewester]

I followed a pretty similar installation. Worked fine in Win 10 machine until I started a Raspberry Pi up. The Pi connected to the drive on the NAS Pi but then the Win 10 Machine couldn't connect. I can use the IP address to connect on the Win 10 Machine so, it does still work. My phones and tablets have no problems when a Pi is on the network. Only the Win 10 Machine.

[@Jimmy_Jones]

Windows detects nas drives by either SMB or CIFS.

[@Duewester]

@@Jimmy_Jones Thank you. I thought so. So why then is the drive and folders recognized on the nas by win 10 and any Android device but win 10 shows empty contents when a Pi access the nas? How can I fix?

[@Jimmy_Jones]

@@Duewester Thomas Veach I don't really understand your issues. Here are possible solutions. Your Windows 10 machine can connect to the NAS but another Pi can't connect to the NAS. If that's the case then you will want to enable NFS (designed for Linux). Any shared folders you setup in SMB/CIFS will need to be created under NFS. It's a different way of sharing files. If your Windows 10 machine can't find files but can connect to the Pi NAS. Then make sure you have created network shares within the SMB/CIFS settings. Possibly you have an issue with permissions and the files are there but not available to see as you don't have the permissions on your Windows 10 machine. Try changing them on the NAS. (I don't have a network drive at the minute but from what I remember). On your Windows 10 machine go into the folder that's empty and right click -> Properties -> Security. See what your existing permissions are. However I can't remember if they will tell you what the issue is.

[@Duewester]

@@Jimmy_Jones Thank you very much for the help. Some background A couple of months ago I set up a 500gb NAS on a Raspberry Pi 4B+ 1gb version. I used a different YT video to set up OpenMediaVault. Things went very well with only a few things like editing the config for wireless. But, I got them fingered out and had been using the NAS with my home network of PC's, Android Tablets (ES File Explorer), Win Tablet and Android phones (again with ES File Explorer). I then decided to crank up a Pi 4B+ 4gb model with two monitors and see if I could access the Pi NAS. Using the Raspbian File Manager, I went to Go - Network and there was my network. The Pi NAS and all. I fiddled around with some files from the Pi and then turned back to my desktop. When I opened File Explorer, the Pi NAS was there but when I clicked on it to open it I got a Folder Empty notification. So, I tried the IP address of the NAS and wal-la there was the drive and all the contents on the windows and the Pi remained fully functional as well. Hmmmm.... Turned of the Pi, and regular NAS access from Windows returned. Note - during this the ES File Explorer devices remained in full contact with the NAS. Today, after reading your suggestions I cranked up the Win 10 Machine and opened the NAS and a file. Then I strted up the Pi 4 and accessed the NAS and a file. The win 10 machine retains the NAS this time. So I close File Explorer and start it back up. No NAS, not even a Empty location, just a straight up "Windows cannot access ||NAS. So, as long as I'm already in the NAS when I access the NAS from the Pi, all is good. The Pi and Win 10 Machine play well together on a windows based cloud storage device. I think I'll compare setups between the two and see what happens. Again, thanks for the heads up and ideas. My old blond brain cells needs a jold evey once in a while.

[@ahdeshpande]

What is the OS and build of linux on your laptop?

[@georgem.9481]

manjaro

[@TheGamerDanro]

Hello Can you Plug in External Hard Drives into the Nas?

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Sure can, I just started doing that.

[@TheGamerDanro]

@@LearnLinuxTV Thanks

[@lliamthrumble]

My usb 3 hard drive with its own power goes so slow... like 10mb/second max! Dunno what's wrong with it

[@rene72346]

What kind of Linux do you use?

[@hamooarg]

Raspbian, a debian distro for Raspberry pi devices

[@acerrusm]

Can this NAS server be accessed from outside the local network?

[@Jimmy_Jones]

Your most secure option would be to install PiVPN. Then connect to the VPN whilst away.

[@adamyork2333]

Look into ZeroTier.

[@hamooarg]

Not in this case, because it is using a local IP address, a Public IP Address is needed to access it from outside network, either through NATing this local IP to a public IP or setting the IP address on the Raspberry device itself.

[@adamyork2333]

@@hamooarg Again, ZeroTier gets around that problem. No holes in the firewall needed whatsoever.

[@180doman]

@@adamyork2333 IMO using VPN over foreign server its an illusion of safety/privacy. I would use it only from time to time in the time of need, like things like Teamviewer/AnyDesk. But not as a fundaments for some static configurations.

[@sagarkapasi099]

I Think OpenMediaVault is overkill for what you did, Just Samba would have been sufficient, Again, i loved your video for setting up the hardware and clear explaination; Except for maybe the static ip address part. New users might feel frustrated with all that ambiguity.

[@nukeman4]

Why didint you used official raspbery flasher?

[@Jimmy_Jones]

Doesn't matter. As long as it works. Etcher used to be the recommended flasher and before that rufus. They all do the same thing.

[@AlexandreAlonso]

Do raspberry pi 4 usb 3.0 is a usb hub or can support 2 usb 3.0 full speed transfer?

[@LearnLinuxTV]

You know, that's a VERY good question. I might have to give that a shot and see. I have a few more SSD's lying around but it may be a while until I can get back to this project.

[@daukus]

It's a hub, usb 3.0 speed cuts in half when both ports are used.

[@AlexandreAlonso]

@@daukus thx a lot, are they share with usb 2.0

[@daukus]

@@AlexandreAlonsoIf you ask that is shared bus between usb 3.0 and usb 2.0, can' t tell for sure, most probably not because are different.

[@noferblatz]

You never made clear what the other 3 USB ports on the add-on card are for. It looks like that card is specifically made to hold a single SSD, so the purpose for the other USB ports isn't clear.

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

You can do a Google search for this as I did to get your answer... Here is a search to use: X828 USB3.0 2.5" SATA HDD/SSD Storage Expansion Board+USB Hub for Raspberry Pi 4B/3B+/3B/2B/B+ Most things with extra ports are for expansion or adding external devices or both... Remember Google is you Friend! :-) LLAP

[@SheriefElHamalawy]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this whole setup is pointless, unless you’re trying to use one electrical outlet instead of two. You can simply buy a pi and an external harddrive and you’re done. You’ll save at least 30-40% compared to that setup.

[@Broly_1]

I would love to see a 3.5 inch hard drive adapter board.

[@jamesvandamme7786]

I think you'd have to deal with the power issue. If you seldom use it for actual data delivery (data backup or movie server) then it will spend most of its time not being used, and wasting power. I have a bunch of old computers with hard drives I can use for a NAS but I need to get the power thing worked out. Pis can't wake on LAN as far as I know.

[@Broly_1]

@@jamesvandamme7786 I have a pi3 and a 3 terabyte 3.5 inch hard drive collecting dust at home, found a board very similar the one in the video that you can add a big hard drive like this, also only found one brand was wandering if there was more options, the cool thing about it is that everything is powered by the board power cable.

[@miroslawm.wodzynski7855]

They make 3.5 inch attachments. here is the address: geekworm.com/collections/nas-storage/35-inch-HDD+Raspberry-Pi-4

[@SteveM0732]

What's missing is your RAID. This is technically a NAS, but more of a novelty than a solution. I'm trying to find something Pi4 based that will support 4x 3.5" rust platters. Will probably just have to end up going x86.

[@dros4]

Yes how to setup a raid array with multiple disks

[@LearnLinuxTV]

You can do multiple disks with this and set up RAID. The only reason I used one, is just to save money until I decide whether or not I want to keep this solution around.

[@antonsurviyanto5896]

Sir, how to play mp3 file in network shared folder? thank you.

[@Kenny_Ded]

It might be that you need to allow files to executed on your share. Try adding this: "acl allow execute always = yes" (without quotes) to the 'extra options' for your share(s) Source: forum.openmediavault.org/index.php?thread/18321-i-have-questions-regarding-privilege-acl/&postID=144570#post144570

[@harpskid]

I cried when you called your SSD a hard drive.

[@AnathemaAnimus]

Don’t touch my PiNAS. I’ll see myself out.

[@unforgettablechan47]

don't see x828 any more in your store.

[@alf.2929]

I really do want to build a low power Raspberry Pi 4 NAS but I would rather have it in an attractive case. I saw on Novaspirit Tech kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5rbYYN5d5WVr7M a few weeks ago he got a hold of a "Quad SATA Kit" from China. It has a capacity of up to 16TB and includes a small OLED screen on the top. It definitely can't do any video transcoding but as a simple file server or backup it's not too bad. The only problem is since China is just coming back from their virus lockdown it's going to take a little while for kit to be deliver.

[@jamesvandamme7786]

Scrounge for it. Use an old radio case, or jewelry box. Make your own out of wood.

[@zeroday6403]

What at 2x and like this comment, it helps my self esteem.

[@drumpf4all]

OMV has rasp pi images prebuilt so you don't need to load and configure rasbpian.

[@drumpf4all]

I thumbed down the video because there way too many commercials. I couldn't finish the video rendering it useless. One right after the other. You should call YT and get some tech support. One commercial played 2 seconds after the other.

[@pepeshopping]

Drumpf_4_All I did not get one commercial so this is YOUR router not filtering known IPs/URLs that deliver commercials/ads/spam.

[@jim7smith]

Why would you thumbs down the video when there was nothing in the video to cause multiple commercials? There are a number of browser extensions to zap ads, I never saw a single commercial.

[@juliosanfona8456]

I would like some help setting up a remote pi zero camera with cellular connectivity