RISC-V NAS: BPI-F3 & OpenMediaVault

RAID RISC-V NAS built using a Banana Pi BPI-F3 single board computer and a JMB582 PCIe to SATA adapter.
The M.2 PCIe to SATA adapter I used can be found on Amazon US here: amzn.to/3VHmLMm -- and on Amazon UK here: amzn.to/3RuLDV1 Note that these are affiliate links from which I earn a commission on qualifying purchases.
My previous review of the Banana Pi BPI-F3 is here:
• Banana Pi BPI-F3: Octa...
I cover OMV NAS setup in more detail in this video:
• Mini PC OpenMediaVault...
And my Odroid HC4 NAS video is here:
• Odroid HC4 Twin SATA S...
More information on the Banana Pi BPI-F3, including links for downloading Bianbu OS NAS, are in its wiki here: wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_...
You can learn more about RISC-V in my annual updates, such as the 2024 one here: • RISC-V 2024 Update: RI...
All of my RISC-V videos are listed on this page: www.explainingcomputers.com/r...
More videos on RISC-V, SBCs, and wider computing and related topics can be found at:
/ @explainingcomputers
You may also like my ExplainingTheFuture channel at: / @explainingthefuture
Chapters:
00:44 Hardware
07:46 Bianbu OS NAS
11:30 RAID OMV
16:12 Performance
18:40 Wrap
#RISC-V #NAS #OMV #BPI-F3 #BianbuOS #BananaPi #OpenMediaVault #ExplainingComputers

[@samaitcheson7057]

11:25 Love that nod to the old Amiga Guru Meditation screen. How I dreaded seeing it back in the day 😂

[@stumblepuppy606]

insert floppy, turn on Amiga, cross fingers as starts to load... Guru Meditation Error!!! Oh noes! try different copy of disk. Cross fingers again. Read error on block 1664! Oh noes!

[@Kw1161]

Now you are preaching to the choir, and bringing back memories of an all night college paper being lost…😢…and the language that followed…😂! Have a great day!

[@Antti_Nannimus]

Excellent. We LOVE these proof-of-concept videos that push open hardware and software platforms into real-world utility for us. You are giving important credibility to the RISC-V world now. It reminds me of the good-old-days when useful, affordable, micro-computers first became available to the masses! You are our most-trusted wilderness scout. I can finally see myself going there under your leadership too.

[@PWingert1966]

Now we just need a slot o n the developer board for SAS interface so we can get to four or eight drive using an external drive box. Next step put several of these units together to create a SAN!

[@JohnDoe4321]

I don't know about those specific drives, but Western Digital uses RISC-V for the controller in most (all?) of their current drives. They designed their own RV core, and open sourced it. Kind of cool to think you might have RV running everything in your NAS.

[@ExplainingComputers]

This is true! :) The HDDs here are too old to have RISC-V controllers. But I had not thought of the fact that, if I had used more modern drives, they would have RISC-V controllers. :)

[@briannewman6216]

The combination of Risc V and Linux points to a bright future.

[@ericwood3709]

Heck yeah. I would absolutely love to see this hardware reach the performance and sophistication needed to replace a desktop PC. SBCs bring it tantalizingly close, especially with NVMe and SATA as storage options. I'd like to be able to build a highly performant RISC V system in a standard ATX case.

[@_xX_me_Xx_]

@@ericwood3709 I'm just waiting for the framework RISC V board

[@autohmae]

@@_xX_me_Xx_ you have to remember this is meant as a developer device

[@_xX_me_Xx_]

@@autohmae Yes I'm aware, but first impressions are important :)

[@snoopstp4189]

this is definitely the kind of system Im building for my next modular network.

[@MichelMorinMontreal]

It will now be difficult to say without qualification that RISC5 processors are not yet ready for everyday applications... Thank you for this

[@ExplainingComputers]

Exactly. That is what this video is all about! :)

[@snoopstp4189]

@@ExplainingComputers I mean it could stand some abuse testing, but w/ a solid base system it's likely any kinks could be worked out.

[@seguramlk]

Linux + RISC-V = Looking Good 🐧

[@andrina118]

Great to see more RISC-V content. I'm enthused by the "open hardware" aspect. It surely is the future

[@An.Individual]

I like the way Chris uses SATA HDD's without using USB. Something I have never seen done with a Raspberry Pi

[@pangit9999]

3:25 "I didn't think I'd take any riscs" - I see what you did there! lol!

[@legojenn]

I love these NAS projects that you have built. I have a bunch of hard drives from computers that I've upgraded to SATA SSDs. I should build one.

[@d.barnette2687]

Greetings from across the pond near Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Another super-max-groovy video. I particularly liked the part where the video shows your tapping your spoon against a rather strong-looking cup of tea. Don't ask me why, I can't explain it. Maybe it's just showing the contrast between the complex and the simple enjoyment of a cup of tea, like the feeling one gets lounging in a hammock after a particulary long and difficult stretch of Python coding.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your support. :)

[@user-eh8oo4uh8h]

16:10 I can see that Chris is an early bird! Waking up at 5am to create quality content for us every Sunday should be applauded! :)

[@suminshizzles6951]

Not necessarily. You can schedule releases.

[@stuartajc8141]

? the screen at that point has a system time (in Japanese I think) of 21:18:12, hardly early, unless the time zone isn't UK

[@RoboNuggie]

Thanks for this Chris, it's both a review and a how-to.... and points to some very interesting things in store for RISC-V. It would be quite something if Raspberry PI released a one-off RISC-V board....

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your support -- and insight. :)

[@PS_Tube]

Greetings Chris B. A really neat tutorial video. And nice to see Mr Scissors and Stanley making a cameo appearance in this video as well.

[@alanthornton3530]

Thanks Chris for a thoroughly interesting RISC-V video, I’m happy to see that NAS setup worked well & that you’ve named the HDD’s Mr Scissors & Stanley, a shout out to both! This is another string to the RISC-V bow, a developing space that is worth watching :)

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Hi, Alan! It's been a real treat seeing RISC-V 's continuing progress here. :)

[@alanthornton3530]

@@Praxibetel-Ix Hi Ford, yes this video was enlightening & I'm looking forward to a RISC-y future ha! ha! I'm hoping that eventually it'll knock x-86 off of it's perch ;)

[@psully311]

Just enjoying my favorite Sunday morning youtube channels.

[@flemtone]

A handy video indeed, love the Amiga easter eggs with the busy pointer and guru meditation error :)

[@paulsander5433]

Thank you for doing this video. It's good to see such rapid progress building support for RISC-V now, and that the hardware and software are stabilizing. A new milestone is for router software. I see that OpenWRT seems to support the widest variety of platforms, but it doesn't support RISC-V, yet.

[@LazloNQ]

The software failure error message at 11:25 is very Amiga-like The Amiga would sometimes get a guru meditation error which was red text across the top of a black screen. It would even say to hit the left mouse button to continue. Must be an easter egg ode to the Amiga by the designers. Had a chuckle when I saw this. :)

[@MarkTheMorose]

Right down to the mouse pointer. Happy days.

[@ericwood3709]

I know that screen from the BSOD screensaver, one of the many options available in Xscreensavers, and those are available for Linux and Mac OS, though not for Windows by the author's choice (really seems to have it in for Microsoft).

[@knier]

theres also a reference to TRON with the 'End of line' message

[@charliesretrocomputing]

I noticed this when I installed OMV on my Raspberry Pi 4, i also noticed that! Pretty cool

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Those mashups which allow to use old hardware are soo satisfying! Please more mashups!

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Actually any mashup is great! Just enjoying the satisfaction of standardized connections

[@Reziac]

Agreed. I found it very funny as I often have some strange arrangement of cables and adapters and whatever else, but in the end the kudzu works.

[@martinsmith5028]

Hi Chris. Another excellent video. I always watch out for the NAS builds and this was a nice change having it set up on a RISC-V and to have it set up as a RAID. Have fun

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Good morning/afternoon, everyone!

[@Ibrahimdude]

Afternoon, My Friend

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

​@@IbrahimdudeHi!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings! Here we are again!

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

​@@ExplainingComputersHi, Chris! Another Sunday, another upload. By the way, I love how you named those two hard drives you used for the NAS! ❤

[@stephenhargreaves9011]

Holy moses, Chris. That power solution, whilst workable, is, ermm, what can I say. Convoluted. And wow - your "busy" mouse pointer is the old Amiga busy pointer.

[@twentyrothmans7308]

Christopher, you are saving me a fortune on magic mushrooms. I've no idea of what's going on, and it's great. This is Glastonbury for geeks, without the unpleasant toilets.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

mAGIC MUSHROOMS 🥴🥴🥴

[@twentyrothmans7308]

@@Praxibetel-Ix I had assumed that everyone in here was on them. I mean, "Mr Scissors"?

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

​@@twentyrothmans7308Nope! Personally, I would never touch shrooms. Pot all the way, baby!!! 😂

[@Geenimetsuri]

This is incredibly cool! Risc-V doing a task really well instead of being just a barely functioning demo-board! Also, I'm still amazed at the connectivity of that board.

[@johncundiff7075]

Good Morning Mr. Barnatt from the road... Enjoyed your video this morning!!

[@jimlynch9390]

Now we have to have someone make the hardware with appropriate power to eliminate the rats nest and have a clean nas. Thanks, it's always interesting to see you make new products with random parts.

[@xrafter]

The "sd" in /dev/sdX doesn't mean ssd, in linux at least "sd" *was* meant to be short for scsi device. Now it is used for sata too. The hdX is for IDE drives.

[@xrafter]

Just to add, according to wiki and I personally can concur that sd also used for USB flash drives.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, you are right -- my bad. I am just used to seeing sd for SSDs.

[@pavelperina7629]

@@xrafter Some of them are even displayed as USB-Attached-SCSI in Windows :-) Well, not sure about flash drives, but external harddrives that support SMART monitoring (and there are also Serial Attached SCSI drives (SAS) although I'm not sure how these are displayed in Linux, especially since we had them in HW RAID around 2010. Which reminds me that these cards had some microprocessors per-se and I would not be surprised to see ARM or RISCV on modern ones.

[@patrickthegoat]

Highlight of the Sunday: another EC video! 😊

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Videos on energy consumption optimizations would also be greatly appreciated

[@rogermac358]

Another excellent and timely video, as I am currently in the early planning stages for a NAS. This information adds another interesting and cost effective option to consider.

Nice seeing these M.2 SATA adapters in action.

[@JohnDunne001]

Nice! I'm just about to upgrade my OMV NAS server and hadn't considered any RISC-V options... looking forward to this one

[@didierluthi]

Thank you for your video, it came at just the right time. 👌

[@jpmyers6950]

Go RISC-V. I think the future of this is very evident to the people that make these boards. I predict in a year there will be a board that could be daily driver for a Linux desktop. I'll be watching. Great video Chris, that took a lot of work, thank you!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. You clearly appreciate the journey here. :)

[@BruceHoult]

With a 16 core SoC (SG2380) with around early Core i7 performance (but a lot more cores than even Xeons had in those days!) come on one or more SBCs (Milk-V Oasis is known) probably around the end of the year or early next year, I think that is definitely on the cards. This SoC should leapfrog the Pi 5, Rock 5, Orange Pi 5 (Arm A76) boards that currently make up the high end of cheapish SBCs.

[@magpie_max]

I like those AMIGA vibes w/ stopwatch waiting cursor and guru-meditation error-screen...

[@PeteTheGeek196]

This is the way we did "cable management" back in the day.

[@ExplainingComputers]

It was indeed!

[@aaronperl]

I still do cable management like this. If the case closes, the cables are managed. My computer is there to be used, not looked at. No windows, no RGB. It's under the desk, out of sight, out of the way 😁

[@loudtrexx]

Lets go! Another super interesting video! Its really surprising that you can turn almost any old pc into a media vault/nas like i have my own nas that is currently running on old information tv pc from my sd card with cloudnext. So if you have an old pc that you have no use for instead of throwing it away as "Worthless" get few ssds or hdds and turn it into a nas server or streaming server! Thank you again chris for this entertaining video! See you next sunday❤

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Can't believe we got _really_ NASty and RISC-y up in here this weekend! Scandalous. 😱 With the bad puns out of the way, this was a marvelous build and is further proof that RISC-V is truly going places. Let's see, on a RISC-V board, you can run a Linux distro, stream video, play Quake (and die in the difficulty select area), edit video, and now, build a NAS! Any other things that I'm forgetting? :)

[@xrafter]

Full ATX riscv computers :).

[@srtcsb]

Thanks for another great video Chris.

[@mwolfer1]

Very nice use case, did you happen to come across a PCIe to SATA adapter with more than 2 SATA ports? BTW 5:26: The German language has a very descriptive term for this kind of cable management: Kabelsalat. 😉

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. There are many 4 and 5 port M.2 PCIe to SATA adapters out there, but the ones with the JMB582 chipset tend to be two port. I'm sure I came across a 4 port, but cannot find it again! However, this is "only" a matter of driver support, and in time I'm sure there will be drivers for adapters with 4 ot 5 ports. :)

[@neb_setabed]

​@@ExplainingComputerscould you use the e key wifi slot to get two more ports?

[@alexislechevalier1022]

I'm earing about the RISC architecture for about 25 years, when I started to work. Back in these days, the easiest way to run something on these devices was to use some Gentoo like distros. Not the more user friendly I know to date. I'm pretty amazed how it turned out.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this, but do note that video is not about the RISC architecture (which now dominates a lot of computing as all Arm chips are RISC). This video is about *RISC-V* which certianly has not been been around for 25 years, and is a specific RISC ISA, just as Arm is another RISC ISA.

[@alexislechevalier1022]

@@ExplainingComputers For sure. But it becomes a more suitable solution for many "every day and user friendly" appliances. I'm quite amazed for what the gen 5 can do. 😄

[@33lex55]

Today: RISC-V! Tomorrow: The WORLD! ;)

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@mikefinn2101]

Thanks for the great update and new exciting updates and all your time and efforts

[@johnmiller4859]

Thanks, Chris. Great information since I've wanted to build a NAS for some time.

[@jaakkohintsala2597]

Always love to see videos about RISC-V.

[@dffabryr]

Excellent video Chris !! RISC-V is a real ARM challenger, maybe in the near future we will have a "RISC-V-PI" SBC

[@PhG1961]

What an awesome review! Great Sunday afternoon entertainment!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for watching!

[@ConorHanley]

I think its a 'good thing' RISC V, as open source, is developing and hopefully in the future it'll become much more mainstream and less of a lash-up NAS like this.

[@JoseLopez-oz1xm]

Very nice Chris, have a good day

[@chriholt]

Very impressive Chris!

[@zacmitchell_1984]

I almost skipped this video, but it has me thinking that maybe i need a NAS instead of random hard drives scattered everywhere 😂. As always appreciate the video!

[@kk0dj]

Brilliant mashup Chris!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@iscariotproject]

i wonder how it would fare as a retropi plattform,thank you for taking the time to fiddle with all the stuff its very interesting to follow.

[@tomashertl8895]

Chris, thanks a lot. Excelent as always! 👍

[@jpwillm5252]

And there you have it, Risc-V joins the dance. 😎

[@HKey_Root]

Mmm, I think I'm on the cusp of replacing my QNAP NAS. Excellent vid. Thank you.

[@59withqsb12]

It shows you are from a generation that was taught to save as you go (like me)!! I bet you could have done your whole config before clicking Apply, might have saved you some time! Also, I'd have definitely given it drive V:\ for RISC-V 😊 (everybody knows X:\ is reserved for special interest material!!) 🤣

[@ExplainingComputers]

What you say is very true. :)

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Very cool, it's good to have the ability to be free from cloud storage, well you know onedrive and google drive come to mind.

[@JazzTechie]

Nice proof of concept demonstrating risk-v's current level of maturity. An even crazier NAS build would be a lattepanda MU with a lite carrier and one of those BEYOMEI 16 port (or 24 port) pcie SATA 3 cards, then bypass the ethernet bottleneck with a USB 10gb NIC.

[@SB-qm5wg]

I didn't know that OMV has a spin-down option. My older WD drives don't like to go to sleep. I've been using hd-idle for years. TY for the video.

[@MicrobyteAlan]

Excellent, good info. I see a NAS in my near future.

[@salan3]

Good video, thank you. I haven't bought a RISCV SBC yet, but getting tempted. I have a drawer half full of PI boards just not used. I want to actually use the RISCV boards and not them to end up as a 'curiosity' only. That time I think is getting near.

[@williamherrick497]

While I may not get smarter every Sunday, I do get better informed through the videos from "Explaining Computers"

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for watching!

[@parrotraiser6541]

Another commentator has raised the question of power consumption. As a NAS is a 24/7 thing, at what point does it become cheaper to use SSDs than recycle spinning rust, even if it's free? Drive transfer speed is not an issue here, as the network is the limiting factor. Could micro SD cards serve as memory for a low-activity NAS? The purpose of this exercise was to show RISC-V in use, but if anything the board is overkill for this application. it set me wondering just how low-powered a board would be adequate for the job?

[@rs.matr1x]

"Don't want to take any risks" Take all the RISCs!

[@user-wm4oe4kk7t]

Thanks a lot for sharing!

[@ironfist7789]

Now you've gone bananas with Nas storage...

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@dalriada842]

"I'm sure some people are worried about my cable management..." HAHAHA!

[@WildkatPhoto]

Sunday Morning NASty EC. :)

[@trevorford8332]

Afternoon Chris, I don't know how you feel about shortcuts but if you press ctrl+l it'll clear your screen!! I'm watching this twice in case I missed anything.

[@xrafter]

I Don't use this because "clear" is superior.

[@DevilsHandyman]

I recently saw that there will be a Risc-V board for the Framework laptop. That seems like a good omen for the processor.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Very much so.

[@truthreigns7]

Very good and educational. thank you

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

I'd enjoy a casaOS video

[@peterbeer8657]

NAS means turned on 24/7, which means using power all the time. But no power consumption is mentioned. It's cool that we can use Risc-V practically but I want to know about power usage.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I should have measured that. My bad.

[@xrafter]

​@@ExplainingComputers You can always mention it in this comment and the pinned comment Mr. Chris. I understand that setting up a watto metter can take some time.

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Nice I love theses video you're the best love Linux one of my favorite os

[@shariarrahman7562]

great stuff

[@tomholroyd7519]

5:20 I was so ready for you to rescue an old IDE drive. Oh well, there is a lot of gold in one of those. More modern drives use as little gold as possible for obvious reason

[@paulmilligan3007]

I noticed that, in the original review of this board, there is a mini-pcie slot on the other side of the board, so a 4 x sata NAS is probably doable. It wouldn’t be neat but it might be fun.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Very true.

[@robertfletcher3421]

That was very interesting.

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

We used to go through a lot of tea waiting on the computer. My how times have changed.

[@judsonleach5248]

It's Sunday Already, Sir?! The OLDER I Get?! The FASTER Time Goes! - FACT!!! lol Cheers! - Judson & Buddy! - Have a Great Week my fellow Nerds! 🙂

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Hello, guys!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Sunday keeps coming around!

[@leetucker9938]

Scissors and Stanley, nice

[@Clark-Mills]

Useful and well explained, than you!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your support. :)

[@user-kb4nm6yg7z]

"May the fart be with you" ~Joda~

[@autohmae]

7:01 pretty certain that's s for SCSI and SAS and SATA was added later to the same driver, both protocols support removable devices. And SAS also has that serial in the name.

[@xoxide1017]

Risc-V could be amazing.. i will most likely buy one and get ubuntu working on it to just have handy

[@danielsnyder6900]

RISC-V has a bright future with support of Linux and Open Media Vault. I was looking for a low power NAS solution and this setup is it. Also as an American, I buck the trend, I love a good cup of tea, not a fan of coffee.

[@D9ID9I]

Don't forget to enable bitmap on your mirror array or you will face resync of a whole array after any unclean shutdown. And btw, you can just use mdadm to manage raid and spin samba without all these fancy "nas os'es".

[@nunya___]

2:47 Baby Stan -ley do-do-da-do-da-da, baby Stan-ley do-do-da-do-da-da 🐟🐟🐟

[@MechaFenris]

End of Line... :) Dillinger's in your NAS :D

[@Mecrom]

I wonder how the power draw is vs arm, performance is looking great!

[@Reziac]

Software RAID.... [shudder] I spent a summer recovering a friend's data from software RAID.... and I have learned not to trust linux filesystems. Nonetheless, very interesting setup for minimal fuss. I see I'm not the only one with a stack of old laptop drives. :D It's actually much better for spinning rust to run 24/7; spindown/up is when they're likely to fail. (I have some with over 20 years in service that way.) What would be really practical for a lot of us is how to set up a (NON-RAID) fileserver to host backups on an older Windows install. A lot of us have that older WinBox that needs a job, and random HDs that still work, and a need for more storage, and you can never have too many backups... one can do the obvious and just hook it together and slap it onto the network, but I'm sure there must be something more interesting that can be done to automate the whole thing.

[@aaronperl]

The drives show up as sda and sdb because they're "SATA disk A and B", ie, the first two SATA ports. Not because the system thinks they're SSDs

[@motmontheinternet]

Actually it means SCSI disk A.

[@aaronperl]

@@motmontheinternet whoops, of course it does. That's what my mind was saying but my fingers wrote SATA. Of course I remembered that from the days when a kernel upgrade changed my hda (IDE disk A) device to sda (SCSI disk A) and my system suddenly stopped booting

[@xrafter]

Be aware that scsi and sata are diffrent interfaces, yet both use the same namespace sdX. For linux at least.

[@encycl07pedia-]

Yep. It is also used to describe most drives that aren't attached via NVMe now.

[@AJB2K3]

@@motmontheinternet @aaronperl He may of wrote SCSI and not spell checked, KZbin has a habit of autouncorrecting things 🤣🤣🤣

[@jos4564]

Is there any solid case for this Pi which has space for HDDs and offer an efficient powersupply?

[@WilliamGacquer]

Please tell us about power consumption!

[@Kw1161]

Thanks Chris for another awesome RISC V information video…great to see the improvements on both the hardware and software on RISC V SBC’s . Now if you only release your time speeder software you would be the next Elon Musk…😂! Have a great week!

[@bookvee]

I have that exact ide to usb adapter! its in the box on a shelf somewhere! A lot of my stuff is in that box...

[@roblatour3511]

loved this video - but would like to find a more modern day solution to externally powering the two HDDs. Any suggestions?

[@Uniblab8]

Possibly difficult but useful