Objectives
My goal in this project was to establish low power, low maintenance, and low cost redundant storage. I was willing to compromise on speed in order to keep costs low.
Components
I used a pair of 1-terabyte external hard drives connected by USB with external power. These were connected to a Raspberry Pi B+.
Software
Security
For external access I have SSH access forwarded to the NAS. However, access is by SSH key only.
Results
Performance
Performance is pretty poor - I get about 3.5 MB/second when reading and writing data. Large file transfers take quite a while (12+ hours).
Cost
The whole setup cost about $165:
- Hard Drive x 2 = ~$110
- USB Hub = ~$20
- Raspberry Pi = ~$35
Power Consumption
Under load this setup uses about 12 watts. Not bad! That's about 105 kilowatt hours per year, or about $7 per year.
Conclusion
This project met my objectives for low cost, high availability, redundant storage. It's slow, but it works just fine for seldom-accessed photos and videos and hosting git repositories.
No comments:
Post a Comment