419 lines
33 KiB
Plaintext
419 lines
33 KiB
Plaintext
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Episode: 4038
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Title: HPR4038: Network Attach Storage Options I Use Everyday
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4038/hpr4038.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-25 18:56:22
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---
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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4000 and 38 for Wednesday the 24th of January 2024.
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Today's show is entitled, Network Attached Storage Options I Use Every Day.
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It is part of the series Networking.
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It is hosted by Beto and is about 39 minutes long.
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It carries a clean flag.
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The summary is, a quick overview of the NAS systems technology I use today and what
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I have used in the past.
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Alright, here we go.
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This is Beto.
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I'm here coming at you with another HVR podcast and today I'm going to talk about Network
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Attached Storage Systems and Technologies that I use over the years and what I'm currently
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using today.
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First off, I just want to say, you know, what is a Network Attached Storage?
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You commonly will hear this as NAS.
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There's other combinations of this terminology attached storage, where direct attached
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storage, network attached storage, and I think there's another one, but can't recall
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it right now.
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Anyway, today I'm focusing mainly on NAS and I might only focus on that because over the
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last couple of years I've been exploring different NAS technologies and I've been adopting
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them into my production space or, quote unquote, home lab production space.
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One of the things that I would say is that in order to compare these NASes, you're going
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to have to understand what your needs are, right?
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I'm a home lab enthusiast, I have server cabinet, I've got equipment in there, I've got
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tons of stuff that I'm running and I'm just doing a lot of different things and I feel
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comfortable with that.
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A lot of people are dialing down their home lab into smaller units and that's understandable,
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but there's years of years and years of data that I'm hoarding or backing up in terms
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of photos and family videos.
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That basically it's not very easy to just have this sitting in a whole bunch of different
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hard drives.
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Today I'm going to compare the different NASes that I use and basically talk about some
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of the old ones that I've used in the past or some of the old solutions that I used
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before network attached storage became such a streamlined type of technology and also
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just kind of conclude where I think network attached storage is going and what the right
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things that I feel are to do in your own home lab environment.
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But let's just go over what I've got today, right?
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Today I've got Synology NAS, I've got two versions, I've got a 220 plus and I have a, I believe
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it's a 914 plus, I'll get back to you on that.
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But one is a 4 bay, the other is a 2 bay, both of them are able to have upgradable RAM modules,
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they both use Intel CPUs and the whole thing behind that is for the ability to use QuickSync.
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So QuickSync allows for media encoding and this is a huge, huge, huge benefit that you
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get out of using Intel Synology NASes.
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So a great resource for anybody who has this Synology or is looking at buying a Synology
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and wants to basically maximize the features and the capabilities of it, there's a site
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that I, the site that I go to where I can get all the containers that I can run on the
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NAS, all the different Synology configurations, setting up a Let's Encrypt SSL or just making
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a full-fledged home lab out of a Synology, Marius hosting, M-A-R-I-U-S hosting.com.
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So Marius hosting.com, this guy's site is phenomenal, he hosted, he hosted site off
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of a Synology NAS, which I find phenomenal, and his walkthroughs are really helpful.
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One of the things that, you know, most people don't know is that a lot of his walkthroughs,
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the Docker, especially the Docker containers that he has configured on there, you can repurpose
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those deployments in your own Docker environment, so.
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But if you're Synology user and you're looking to maximize the, you know, the bang for
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your buck on the Synology, this guy's website is one of the best.
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So let me go back to Y Synology and why I have this.
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One of the biggest things that I'm using for my Synology NAS is a Google Drive backup system.
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So I have Google Drive, I have, you know, my own Google Drive files, but I'm backing
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them, I'm backing all of that up toward on my Synology NAS.
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And there's a very seamless tool built into the Synology package center that allows you
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to just one click, a couple clicks, go through, set up the off token with Google and allow
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for the application to allow for this Synology to read your Google Drive.
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And then I have a Cron job where I have a Cron job or a schedule service that basically
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every hour, a couple hours, it just syncs my, my Google Drive to my Synology.
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This is a huge benefit, right?
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This is a phenomenal, it's like just a really good, really good thing.
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Because if you ever lose access to your Google Drive or you just, you know, you want to
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just get some files locally because there are videos, you know, tutorials, whatever, whatever
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you have because, you know, you can access those locally and don't have to worry about going
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over Google Drive.
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Mainly because you're going to have problems loading, you know, large videos and things
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of that nature off of Google Drive.
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You'll be at the mercy of, you know, getting that over the internet and having that cash
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onto your local machine and go from there when it's on the land, it's just a lot faster.
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Okay, another benefit for the Synology is that if you're into backing up your Google
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photos, you aren't going to find that it's a fairly difficult and let me take a step
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back.
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If you're into backing up any photos from your phone, your iPad, your iPhone, your Android
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phone, your Windows computer, anything of that nature, you're going to find it fairly
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difficult and Synology has a couple of options in there so you can, you know, you can basically
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do what you want to do in terms of hosting an image system so that you can use your Synology
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and basically back up your photos to the Synology from your iPhone, from your iPad, your
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Android phone, your Samsung phone, whatever it is, your Windows computer, Linux computer,
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your Steam Deck, it doesn't matter.
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You'll be able to basically attach this and attach this app or use a some alternative to
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make that happen.
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But anyway, my point is that it's a good target for, you know, just dumping photos and videos
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in there because you at least want to get that three to one strategy going using basically
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a network attached storage.
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But the second thing that I find super helpful with Synology is that, and this goes back
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to Marius Hosting, Marius Hosting.com, is that you can run Docker containers off of
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this thing.
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So early on, I was running Docker containers by going to Docker Hub and, you know, pull
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a container deployment and just run that and then, you know, do my thing from there.
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But you can actually go a layer deeper and run Portainer on this thing and then run all
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your Docker configs off of that and basically back up your Portainer and you're good to
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go.
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So my point is you have this very powerful one box that can act as your entire home lab.
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And as long as you have the ability to basically have a secondary backup system or you can
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just plug in hard drives to this device, to this Synology NAS.
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You basically have a home lab device that you can conduct frequent backups to an offsite
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over the network or over a USB device.
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And you basically accomplished, you know, what most home labors are doing with, you know,
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all this crazy equipment that they've got in a, you know, Netshelter rack, APC Netshelter
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rack.
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Anyway, Synology is a huge, huge, you know, easy push button environment and allows you
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to either one, go all in on the Synology ecosystem or two, host your own containers for your
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own applications and your own self-hosted applications.
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So I think Synology is one of the best balances out there for beginners, mid-tier and even
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advanced users.
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So definitely take a look at any Synology box that has the ability to run quick sync or
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do quick syncing coding or they have, you know, high amounts of core counts like the new
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AMD ones that are coming along the way.
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I'll personally stick with the Intel ones just because, you know, it's going to be, they're
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going to be a little cheaper because you're going to be able to get them used and, or
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renewed at a cheaper price.
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And some of them are still good, you know, some of them you could still add NVMe drives
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to them.
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You can add Tengik, Nix to them and, you know, you get really good performance out of them.
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So anyway, that Synology, sorry, you know, if it sounds like a fanboy, I just, I've had
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these devices for probably more than five years now, especially the, the, the, the, the
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four bay one, which is, it's a 900 series, but I think it's one of their early 900 series,
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like 904 or something like that.
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But anyway, great devices, they're still getting updates, right?
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I'm in the latest update for both of them and, you know, wonderful, wonderful company
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in terms of, you know, what they're doing here.
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So in terms of keeping that box open to allow you to run containers.
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So fantastic.
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Anyway, all right, let's go to my next one.
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Next thing that I've been tinkering with, and this one's, I'm tinkering, I am legitimately
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tinkering with.
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It's a Raspberry Pi with, it's a, it's a, it's a two bay Raspberry Pi system from Argon.
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And basically it's a vertical NAS box, but you need a Raspberry Pi for it.
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So Argon recently came out in the last year, I believe, with a four bay, two and a half
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inch drive or two bay, three and a half inch drive network attached storage enclosure.
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So you need the Raspberry Pi and then it has a USB, it has a, it has a daughter board that
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connects over USB 3.0 ports on the Raspberry Pi and it allows you to basically attach
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the two, three and a half inch drives or four, two and a half inch drives.
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And I think you can do two, three and a half inches and two, two and a half inch drives
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if you want it to.
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But anyway, this is a nice little box.
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If you have, you know, if you want to tinker and you want to just kind of get a feel for,
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if you want to get a cheaper device basically compared to a Synology, this is a good alternative.
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I think for a total, you know, with the Raspberry Pi in the box, you're probably spending about
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200 bucks versus, you know, the 220 plus that I have for the, for the Synology, which is
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maybe about 300 bucks, you know, if you get it used, you might be able to get it to 250
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or something cheaper.
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But anyway, this is a Raspberry Pi based environment.
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So you're on an ARM architecture.
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So you're not going to get the greatest of performance compared to the Synology, but what
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you will get is you'll get full, you know, unlock of, you know, Linux goodness, right?
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So that's what, that's the benefit of this, right?
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But it's not going to be on a 686 architecture or anything of that nature.
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So just, you know, it's not an Intel architecture or AMD architecture, you're not going to get
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a 64 bit on full support on all 64 bit applications.
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So there's going to be some nuances there because it's ARM, but at least you'll be able
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to do commit to your Linux tinkerness or Linux interest by using it.
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But anyway, one of the biggest recommendations here is Open Media Vault.
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So Open Media Vault will allow you to basically create a Synology like front end environment
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where you're going to be able to host Samba, host iSCSI targets, host FTP servers, be
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allow you to deploy some containers, it'll allow you to raid, raid some drives and things
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of that nature.
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And basically, you're going to end up with a box that very simple, very straightforward.
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And it's run on ARM, it's run on a Raspberry Pi one downside.
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The one downside to this is that remember what I said, it's on a daughterboard, a daughter
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board that runs off of USB connectivity.
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So you're not getting PCIe bus throughput, you're not getting anything of that nature,
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you're getting USB throughput.
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And Open Media Vault also has a problem similar to my next options, which is basically,
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you're not going to see the drives because these are not SATA drives, right?
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This is not, these are not SATA drives.
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So you'll have to basically do your drive formatting in the command line to then expose
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that to Open Media Vault, which will then you'll be able to see the file systems and be
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able to see a save to it.
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One of the cool parts is it's a Raspberry Pi and you can run ZFS.
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So you can configure ZFS raid on your drives, yes, you're going to have to do this over
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the command line, but it's easy enough, it's straightforward, you get your two drives
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added to the pool, your pool is going to be available and then from there you'll load
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your file system and then Open Media Vault will see that file system and then allow you
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for it to save and do basically home lab or media, media functions on the NAS.
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So this is a combination solution, right?
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This is a argon enclosure, but the bones of this to make it a NAS, a worthwhile NAS is
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the operating system you're using, which will have to be devian and Open Media Vault,
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which is the, it's like a layer or a wrapper around your operating system so that this
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becomes a headless network attached storage and allows you to do network attached doors
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like functions, Samba, FTP, ISCSI targets, host containers, run, you know, applications
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and things of that nature, okay.
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So Synology and then the second one was a pairing of Open Media Vault and an argon enclosure,
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you can still do Open Media Vault on other devices, but you know, this is just a supply
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of this application here with the argon enclosure.
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Okay, so next one that I have, this one, I'm going to basically say that TrueNAS scale
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is one of the best solutions out there for the medium to expert tier of, you know, Linux,
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a home lab person, right.
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So you, you want to be on TrueNAS scale, right.
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If Synology is like, if you're looking at Synology is like this sucks, you know, two, two,
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two bays, four bays for 500 bucks, I got, I got an old PC here that can, you know, it's
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got eight bays in it, I can dump eight hard drives in there for, you know, next to nothing,
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I just need something to host or to create that NAS environment.
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Open Media Vault, you're going to think, oh, this is just a little gimmicky.
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It's not advanced enough.
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It doesn't give me the fungibility that I need.
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You could go Proxmox and you can throw ZFS on there and you can do all those other things.
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And that's cool too.
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But remember, we're talking about network attached storage.
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We're not really talking about virtualization or anything, you know, too, you know, deep
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into that layer.
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But TrueNAS scale is the compromise and that's my opinion.
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It's the compromise because with TrueNAS scale, you've got a Linux environment, right?
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Because TrueNAS scale is Linux and you've, uh, it's a, it's a Linux environment.
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You've got ZFS, you've got applications.
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You can run on Kubernetes bare right there on, on TrueNAS scale.
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You've got the ability to run virtualization or, you know, to run VMs and you have all
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the NAS functionality built into it.
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You got ice guzzly, you got FTP, you got a Samba, you got NFS, you got, uh, you got everything.
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Just like the same thing, the same things that come with Synology and OMV and those combinations,
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you got it everything with scale and the nice part with scale.
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Just like I said, you could go Proxmox and achieve similar, similar things.
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But when you run TrueNAS scale bare metal, uh, you now basically unlocked all the hardware
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and exposed it all to TrueNAS scale, which makes, which ensures that your ZFS performance
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or your ZFS, uh, yeah, your ZFS performance is going to be optimal, right?
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So you're basically, basically going to have all your scusy controllers or your SATA controllers
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or everything exposed to TrueNAS scale and air and ZFS is going to run very healthy in this environment.
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It's not going to have to deal with weird, you know, virtualization drivers and things of that nature.
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So this is a really good, um, uh, I think middle ground for anybody out there
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who's expert, you know, medium to expert tier, home lab or, you know, network attached storage,
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implement needs, right? So this is, this is that mid to expert tier.
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I say that because again, Synology, a lot of stuff is push button, man.
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This is really good stuff. You want to get, you want to get SSL certificates loaded on there,
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you want to do, they got, and they got a way for you to do that, um, all, all down for the whole
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thing, right? Like you want to, you want to fully run Synology as a home lab, they've got everything
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they're built into the box. It's a wonderful, wonderful product, uh, open media vault with an
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argon enclosure or your, or, you know, your own PC or whatever that nature, um, this is a good
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wrapper, but it's, it's just a little, you know, a little bit rough around the edges, but it's good
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enough. It doesn't get you all the functionality. You still got to tinker a little or pull back the
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layers a little more and work a little harder, but it gets you there, right? It gets you there.
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You get your plex on there, you get your jelly fin on there, and you'll be able to do, you know,
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a lot of things. Trueness. Now that gets you a lot, a lot, a lot of what Synology has, a lot,
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a lot of the technical openness that, you know, using OMB or Debian is going to, is going to give you
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and it's, it's basically going to then open you to other options that you didn't think you needed
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or think you wanted. So virtualization, like I said, Kubernetes, um, applications, true
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true-nass apps, or I forget, I believe it's like true-nass applications or, or true,
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true charts. There you go, true charts, um, allows you to basically run, you know, containers,
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Docker containers, or run actual Kubernetes, um, uh, run Kubernetes, uh, deployments, uh, in
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true-nass scale. So, like I said, it's, it's that compromise that I say that it's the best one
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for the mid to expert tier. Um, I can't say any, I can't say any more about that, right?
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Uh, hardware support is all there for, you know, for Linux, uh, hardware. So you're going to get
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all the hardware support that you see on Linux. Uh, you got ZFS and it's just a whole lot more,
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whole lot more. Okay, true-nass core. So I've actually, I actually went from true-nass core to
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true-nass scale. Uh, so one of the main things that I would say about true-nass core, remember,
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this is a Unix based environment. So freeBSD is under the, is, uh, is, uh, is the basis of true-nass core.
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So if you are a Unix, heavy Unix, uh, user, if you're a heavy, heavy freeBSD user,
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you know, if you're coming from that, you know, um, if you're coming from that open sense
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and that PF sense world and you're coming from that BSD world, this true-nass core is your,
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is, is what you want to go with. And, and I say that only because, you know, if you're already,
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if you're already diving deep into the depths of BSD and you're running jails and you're running
|
||
|
|
all the other stuff that you got to, you, that, that's, that's unique inside of the BSD realm.
|
||
|
|
Go true-nass core because that's your, that's you. That's all you, that's, that's where you're at.
|
||
|
|
To me, this is, again, this is medium, but I would say for the medium folks, the mid-tier folks,
|
||
|
|
just stay away from this, just go scale. Um, but if, if you're a mid-tier Linux user, right, um,
|
||
|
|
just go, just go scale, but if you're expert and you know what you're doing and you want to have
|
||
|
|
some level of, of diversity in your home lab environment, meaning you're already running
|
||
|
|
scale and you want to run, you know, something different because you want, you know, diversity
|
||
|
|
and code base and separate failure domains based on application code. Okay, go scale, do, do scale
|
||
|
|
and core, right? That way you're not hit by some zero-day in Linux in both of your, you know,
|
||
|
|
your, your server, your server environments. That's the only thing I can say about core because
|
||
|
|
I wouldn't want to run a pure core environment, right? I guess so much functionality at a scale
|
||
|
|
that I prefer to run 100% scale, you know, in all my, in all my systems, right? I get, I get
|
||
|
|
IO drivers, I get, like, I get a Linux KVM functionality that's, you know, that's, that gets
|
||
|
|
fully supported, but I got one buff for you. So one thing that I noticed with core is that
|
||
|
|
I believe if I, if memory serves me right, I believe that I was not able to get
|
||
|
|
it and someone that definitely, that email me, contact me. But if I run, I don't believe I was
|
||
|
|
able to run open sense on core. Now, I know this is not a NAS related topic, but if you got,
|
||
|
|
if you got feedback from me, let me know email me in and I'll, I'll bet though I haven't found
|
||
|
|
me.com and I'll really be interested to hear from you, but I think I had problems trying to run
|
||
|
|
open sense on their core. And the mind you open sense is free BSD, core is free BSD, and
|
||
|
|
that to me, as I think that to me is what kind of, you know, rub me the wrong way. Now running
|
||
|
|
open sense on their scale is not a great situation either because when I was running core,
|
||
|
|
I was running core and I was running proxmox for the purposes of virtualization. But because
|
||
|
|
scale came out, I was able to consolidate my proxmox and trueness environment into a single box.
|
||
|
|
And that's why I ended up sticking with trueness scale. But running open BSD or open sense on,
|
||
|
|
as a virtual machine, under scale, not the greatest, not the greatest situation because open
|
||
|
|
sense or free BSD, underlinedly, doesn't have great functionality with the VRIO driver. So basically,
|
||
|
|
I don't get the full 10 gig performance that I get from, you know, my Nick, you know, within
|
||
|
|
the virtual machine that's running in scale, which is a free BSD virtual machine, which is open
|
||
|
|
sense. So I end up have, I end up losing performance because of that. I didn't have that issue when
|
||
|
|
I was running ESXi at some point. So that's just a little bit of an observation that I've made
|
||
|
|
over the years. But trueness core, if you're expert tier and you're free BSD savvy and you're running
|
||
|
|
free BSD as a desktop or on your laptop, listen, then that's you all day, please, please go trueness
|
||
|
|
core and that's you all day. You want application diversity and you want to be able to, you know,
|
||
|
|
you've got some critical stuff that you want running and you want to, you want to make sure it's
|
||
|
|
not going to go down, go core, right? Like put the investment into running core because that's what
|
||
|
|
you want to be running on, especially for your, especially for the ZFS for support and for the
|
||
|
|
fact that it's free BSD underneath. Okay. All right. So next one up is very controversial because
|
||
|
|
actually I'm going to say I'm going to use that one for last because then I'll put the controversy
|
||
|
|
for last. All right. Individual drives. Okay. Yes. This is not the controversial one. This is just
|
||
|
|
the regular one. Individual drives. So individual drives are basically just a really bad idea. So
|
||
|
|
just don't do it, right? Just don't do, don't do individual drives. You're going to regret it. You
|
||
|
|
are absolutely 100% going to regret it. Regret it, I mean. So if you have individual drives,
|
||
|
|
start getting on a network attached storage now. If you have a direct attached storage,
|
||
|
|
I recommend plugging that thing into a box like a Raspberry Pi or a tiny PC and load up one of these
|
||
|
|
operating systems that allows you to do Samba, FTP, Sharing, whatever. Mainly Samba or SIFS
|
||
|
|
or NFS sharing because you want to get that thing on the network, right? So those drives,
|
||
|
|
you want to get them on the network somehow. So if it's individual, individual drives plug them
|
||
|
|
into a box, plug them into a PC, something got laying around and get those things on the network
|
||
|
|
and start consolidating your data and migrating them for three, two, one backup strategy. So
|
||
|
|
not the, again, this is not the controversial one, but this is the one that I believe most people
|
||
|
|
should try your best to start network attached storing your data so that you can access it easily,
|
||
|
|
you can back them up easily and you can basically get, you've managed, maximize the benefits of
|
||
|
|
a network attached storage to your everyday life and you know, start home-living if you haven't
|
||
|
|
done so already. Okay, here's the controversial one and I know this controversial because this
|
||
|
|
one is going to basically call some people to go overboard and probably stop listening, but yes,
|
||
|
|
I'm going to say it, Windows, right? Windows server or Windows 10, Windows 11 with Windows storage
|
||
|
|
spaces. This combination here is equivalent to me pitching the Raspberry Pi with the Argon
|
||
|
|
enclosure and the Open Media, with running Debian, running Open Media Involve as a wrapper or
|
||
|
|
Razbian with the Open Media Involve wrapper, right? Windows, Windows Home Network Sharing plus
|
||
|
|
a, you know, Docker running on Windows or Hyper-V or VMware or VirtualBox, whatever, right? This
|
||
|
|
is going to build that same kind of environment as well. In addition to that, if you have individual
|
||
|
|
drives and they're free of space, you can basically build a similar to Synology, this kind of funky
|
||
|
|
RAID 1 or this kind of funky RAID 5 NAS or direct attached storage environment using Windows storage
|
||
|
|
spaces. So Windows plus Windows storage spaces plus Windows Home Network or Home Network services,
|
||
|
|
that's going to give you file access to movies and videos and pictures. It gives you a target where
|
||
|
|
you can back things up to, but it's a little manual in that sense. You're not going to be able to
|
||
|
|
back up from all devices because again, you're using Windows, so now you've got to start running
|
||
|
|
containers to host certain types of applications to serve that functionality. But yeah, you know,
|
||
|
|
this is going to be the most controversial one and I know a lot of people are going to cringe and
|
||
|
|
probably already stop listening, but Windows plus Windows storage spaces or Windows plus Windows
|
||
|
|
server plus, you know, some sort of, you know, RAID solution. So anyway, okay. So, so why do I have
|
||
|
|
so many, right? I'm using all of this. I have Synology. I've got freaking Open MediaVol on Linux.
|
||
|
|
I got a Linux Raspbian box running Open MediaVol. I got Trunascale or I got
|
||
|
|
ZFS on the last one, right? Linux, ZFS, Open MediaVol. I got Trunascale. I was using TrunasCore,
|
||
|
|
so we can say that I phased out of that. And I've got, I do have individual drives, you know,
|
||
|
|
sitting, you know, that, you know, USB drives and hard drives that I'm put to the, like,
|
||
|
|
they just pile up, right? And, and yes, I do have a Windows storage space box that I use from time
|
||
|
|
to time that has a lot of old stuff that, you know, if I need NTFS file system access, you know,
|
||
|
|
that's where I'm gaining the access from. Synology, I believe has NTFS access or capabilities,
|
||
|
|
but I think that's a plug-in. You have to purchase to enable that. But anyway, you know,
|
||
|
|
I have a lot of these because I back things up from different systems. I got Windows, I got
|
||
|
|
Linux, I got Mac, I got steam, I got a steam deck, I got, you know, gaming systems, so I got
|
||
|
|
cameras, so all these things are necessary. But my backup system is pretty straightforward,
|
||
|
|
though, right? My Synologies are my front-ends, right? I use my Synology as my front-ends,
|
||
|
|
where I load everything into. I use my Trunascale boxes. I use them as my back-ends that replicate
|
||
|
|
from one another to one another. So I've got my primary, and then I've got my backups,
|
||
|
|
and then I have, you know, drives that I basically, you know, copy, you know, important things to,
|
||
|
|
and those are in cold storage, you know, right? So those are offsite, somewhere safe, and somewhere
|
||
|
|
where I don't have to worry so much. So, you know, I enjoy just spreading the load, right? I enjoy
|
||
|
|
spreading the load on different systems, because when one system breaks down, I can go to the next one,
|
||
|
|
and I can say, okay, you know, I'm good to go. I'm not impacted by the same zero day. I'm not
|
||
|
|
impacted by the same hardware issues. I'm not impacted by the same code base. It's just something
|
||
|
|
completely different, and I'm not have, I don't have to worry so much about it. Some old notable
|
||
|
|
entries right here, so some things to worth mentioning, sorry, some things worth mentioning.
|
||
|
|
Drobo. So, Drobo, I had a Drobo for many years. This was a good target as a network attached
|
||
|
|
storage for, you know, just dumping data in it. The only downside to the Drobo, and these are still
|
||
|
|
usable for many people's needs, but the only problem with the Drobo was that it's back,
|
||
|
|
it's backplane was too slow, right? You can, you know, with five drives, a recovery of five drives
|
||
|
|
could take days and days and days. Now, that could still be the case on my four base
|
||
|
|
analogy. If I have, if I have 20 terabyte drives on there, that could still be the case there.
|
||
|
|
But the Drobo, it was noticeably slow. It was very slow, and I would say that I've done
|
||
|
|
recovery exercises on the Synology. It was a lot more seamless on the Synology than it was on
|
||
|
|
the Drobo. The Drobo, you literally just put, when the drive failed, you took it out, you put,
|
||
|
|
you replace it with another one, and you cross your fingers hoping that that thing will recover.
|
||
|
|
So I think Synology is the interface a little more intuitive, and it was just a little better.
|
||
|
|
FreeNAS, right? This is where TrueNAS came from. So, you know, so I went FreeNAS, then I went
|
||
|
|
TrueNAS core, and then I went on TrueNAS scale. So the cool part about all that was these were
|
||
|
|
ZFS drives, and I was literally able to just, you know, uninstall FreeNAS, install TrueNAS scale,
|
||
|
|
and, you know, repopulate the ZFS pool, or read the ZFS pool, and done, right? Like, I didn't
|
||
|
|
have to worry so much. That's why I said about TrueNAS scale, TrueNAS core.
|
||
|
|
Since the underlying hardware is, the underlying file system is ZFS, you're basically not having
|
||
|
|
to worry. It's just about having a different code base and having it under a different operating
|
||
|
|
system. So, yeah, FreeNAS, very, you know, thank goodness it's come around and thank goodness
|
||
|
|
it's evolved into TrueNAS scale. OwnCloud. So, OwnCloud is one of these kind of like Open Media Vault
|
||
|
|
situations. So, that was definitely a worthwhile exam I mentioned. And Samba dedicated Samba server,
|
||
|
|
I mean, Samba is still around, like it's the Samba 3.0 or something like that now, but everybody
|
||
|
|
is, that's what's your, that's what, that's how you're able to share files from Linux to a Windows
|
||
|
|
computer is through Samba, right? Through network, you know, when you're doing the network,
|
||
|
|
home discovery on Windows, it's through Samba. But anyway, and it's hosted on Linux,
|
||
|
|
it's coming in through Samba. Raid enclosures, right? Like, you know, like these Raid enclosures
|
||
|
|
where you could populate like eight drives on there, and it'll plug over USB 3.0 connection.
|
||
|
|
A lot of them now are doing, you know, USB 3.1, 3.2, and I always look at that and I say, wow, you know,
|
||
|
|
you know, for anybody who's reliably trying to, you know, have, for anybody who's trying to
|
||
|
|
reliably use those, I would be very cautioned because you're limited to the backplane and then
|
||
|
|
you're limited to the fact that whatever, whatever is the machine that's hosting that to conduct the
|
||
|
|
Raid, unless you're doing ZFS, which is also a difficult thing to do over USB, as a USB interface,
|
||
|
|
but if you're just trying to do Raid or hardware software Raid, like, you know, on Linux,
|
||
|
|
MD Raid, for example, if you lose your Linux box, meaning if you lose the data on the Linux box,
|
||
|
|
you lost your freaking Raid, and that sucks, right? You can't rebuild it or, you know, you're
|
||
|
|
going to have problems. So Raid enclosures, you know, I just steer away from them, you know, stick
|
||
|
|
to, stick to ways that you can either move the drives from one box to another, like ZFS with
|
||
|
|
between Trunascal and Trunascore, or, you know, have your 3.2.1 strategy in place. Pogo plug, right?
|
||
|
|
Pogo plug, if you don't know what this was, I'm having a link in the show notes, but this thing
|
||
|
|
was basically, like, there early, I would say, it's like a, a malgamation of, you know, a Raspberry Pi,
|
||
|
|
dumbed down to its dumbest form with the attempt to become a Synology Box, right? Like, it just had
|
||
|
|
no power, and it just, it just didn't work. It worked for a moment, but it didn't have the power
|
||
|
|
to last. Delink 232, right? This is the OG of OG NASA's. When this thing came out, this thing was,
|
||
|
|
like, everybody's pipe dream, because you could, it's similar to the WRT routers, where you could
|
||
|
|
load a firmware up, and then you basically had unlocked other features and loaded up other
|
||
|
|
applications. That's what the Delink 232 allowed you to do. You can basically have this two-bay
|
||
|
|
network attached to Origin Closure, load up a firmware, and you can, you can basically unlock,
|
||
|
|
you know, Linux applications on it, and do, you know, similar things to what the Synology is
|
||
|
|
fully capable of doing today. What a wonderful device. I still have my Delink 232. I'm not using
|
||
|
|
it, of course. That thing is turned off, along with the DROBO and, you know, old rated,
|
||
|
|
rating closures. But, yeah, I think it's good to end this on the Delink 232. Rest in peace, buddy.
|
||
|
|
All right, folks. I hope you enjoyed this. I talk fast. Sorry, you know, I'm just gonna,
|
||
|
|
just gonna say sorry, but it's a good 38 minutes, and I'm gonna end this on the 39-minute mark,
|
||
|
|
and I hope you all are having a good new year. Please consider, you know, hosting and, you know,
|
||
|
|
creating a podcast and setting it to HBR, and, you know, just share what you know. It doesn't
|
||
|
|
matter what it is past, present, future. See you.
|
||
|
|
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio. Hacker Public Radio does work. Today's show was
|
||
|
|
contributed by a HBR listener like yourself. If you ever thought of recording podcasts,
|
||
|
|
you click on our contribute link to find out how easy it really is. Hosting for HBR has been
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||
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kindly provided by an honesthost.com, the internet archive, and our sync.net. On this
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||
|
|
otherwise stated, today's show is released on our Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
|
||
|
|
License.
|