🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:02 🖥️ *Introduction to turning a Mini PC into a NAS* - Explanation of repurposing a Mini PC into a NAS. - Mention of the Mini PC used in the video. - Disclaimers about using a Mini PC as a NAS. 01:57 💡 *Pros and cons of using a Mini PC as a NAS* - Pros: Cost-effectiveness, sustainability, power efficiency, and connectivity options. - Cons: USB limitations, potential stability issues, drive identity conflicts, and separate power connections. 04:29 🛠️ *What you need to convert a Mini PC into a NAS* - Required hardware components, including a Mini PC, USB drives, SSDs, external storage, HDMI monitor, and keyboard. - Mention of specific Mini PC options and external storage solutions. 07:31 📥 *Obtaining necessary software and tools* - Instructions for downloading the necessary NAS operating systems (TrueNAS and Unraid) and Rufus tool for USB creation. - Guidance for preparing USB drives with the chosen operating system. 17:45 ⚙️ *Preparing the USB drive for OS installation* - Extracting the downloaded zip file to the USB drive. - Deleting the EFI folder (if present) and making the USB drive bootable. 19:25 🖥️ *Installing NAS Operating Systems (UNRAID and TrueNAS)* - Explaining the installation process for UNRAID and TrueNAS. - Discussing options for SSD installation based on the choice of NAS OS. 21:58 💽 *Choosing the Right SSD for NAS* - Advising on SSD selection based on the Mini PC's M.2 or SATA support. - Discussing SSD capacity considerations for various use cases. 26:27 ⚙️ *Setting Boot Priority in BIOS* - Configuring BIOS settings to boot from the selected USB drive for NAS installation. - Explaining the process for both UNRAID and TrueNAS installations. 28:06 🌐 *Accessing NAS Installation from Web Browser* - Demonstrating how to access the NAS setup interface through a web browser. - Recommending an IP scanning tool to locate the NAS on the local network. 29:55 ⚙️ *Completing the NAS Installation* - Finalizing the NAS installation and creating login credentials. - Explaining that TrueNAS can be accessed via HDMI or web interface. 33:44 ⚙️ *Setting Default Boot Drive for NAS* - Ensuring that the newly installed SSD is set as the default boot drive in BIOS. - Explaining the importance of this step to maintain the chosen NAS OS. 36:41 📂 *Adding USB Storage to Mini PC NAS* - Explaining the process of adding USB storage to a Mini PC NAS. - Highlighting the importance of choosing the right external storage configuration. 37:23 🧩 *Differences Between UNRAID and TrueNAS for USB Storage* - Contrasting the approach of UNRAID and TrueNAS when connecting USB storage. - Emphasizing that UNRAID allows individual drive access, while TrueNAS may utilize external RAID or JBOD setups. 38:41 🚧 *Configuring USB Storage for UNRAID* - Demonstrating how to configure USB storage with UNRAID. - Discussing options for creating storage pools and assigning parity disks. 39:48 🛠️ *Setting Up USB Storage with TrueNAS* - Explaining the process of setting up USB storage with TrueNAS. - Advising the use of external RAID devices for redundancy and data integrity. 40:03 💼 *Conclusion and Considerations* - Summarizing the video's main points. - Reminding viewers of the advantages and limitations of converting Mini PCs into NAS devices. - Hinting at future content exploring the pros and cons of this setup. Made with HARPA AI
The NAS on this end has been an old PC that gets mostly old parts over time. First one ran Win2000. An old laptop works too. These days the NAS has moved to different Linux/BSD distros including FreeNas/TrueNas. Biggest thing has always been what ever the setup, always have the 3-2-1 backup strategy setup along the way. You'll learn lots along the way.
Superb I would really want to see more of this type of content. As a constructive criticism, I think by joining two tutorials in one, this might have been more confusing than necessary. If you have to join the tutorials maybe add a logo of each system in the upper left corner. All and all... I understood you just fine, I just fear other people might not. Thanks again though for your great work.
You are ABSOLUTELY right, and I debated for a long time about whether to make them separate. In the end, I decided that people might think it's a bit spammy to make two vids showing 80% of the same process. I am working on a 5 Good vs 5 Bad follow up to this (i.e. whether users should opt for using old/mini PCs for NAS') and if I get a lot of feedback/criticism about the merging of unraid and TrueNAS installs in this vid, oll definitely revisit asap and make separate ones. Cheers for keeping me on the straight and narrow man!
Even with no external storage but with just one or two internal NVME slots, one of these would be a very nice NAS for use when travelling, in your RV, or boat. When I want to pack along a bunch of videos, I rip the MKV files into much smaller mp4 files and the quality is plenty high enough when watching on a computer screen. When accompanied by a travel router, there is plenty of functionality and storage for two or more people on a trip.
I am toying with doing exactly that with this mini PC thing...the only barrier finding is losing 50% cap to the raid. Currently looking into m.2 riser cards that turn 1 slot onto 2..normally they are used for m.2 WiFi adapters, but gonna try it out
What about adding ASM1166 NVMe card with 6xSATA for that minipc. Then use external power supply or pico psu for 3.5" hdds? Im using such setup currently and that pulls 9Watt when idle.
Depending on your requirements, You can simply use your router plus a cheap raid enclosure. Bought a Trip-lite 2 bay enclosure for about $80 bucks and installed dd-wrt software on my WRT1200AC router. The DD-WRT software has a miniDLNA server running on it. This allows me to stream my music, movies, and send hourly back ups off my computer without a hitch. Probably if you had a household of 3 or 4 people accessing it, it would struggle but for one person it works perfectly. Actually, you probably don't need to install DD-WRT since most decent routers have some sort of media server built in. I'm guessing most house holds really don't need much more than that.
Excellent guide m8, spot on. It is worth pointing out however, that one can also try Windows Server 2022 Evaluation for ~180 days (possibly longer) and convert the evaluation with a key. The key can be had on offer at discount prices just like Windows 11 and Windows 10. Probably somewhere around ~$20 USD,…..
@@nascompares Definitely worth a go IMO and without question worth watching. The thumbs up are just waiting for the video. Special attention going to converting from a free Evaluation to key wouldn’t go amiss either if you’ve a mind to.
love the video, learned tons. love the shirt as well. so thats maybe a silly, silly question: how about windows 10/11 Storage Spaces ? can you build a NAS of sorts from that?
Were you spying on me? I was in the middle of editing my own video on a mini-pc NAS when this dropped. Of course, mine was a simple RAID1 setup, not this fancy stuff. 😉🤣
I'm a beginner to data storage look for a way to keep video pic and documents safe for long term mini pc with ORICO 2 Bay or 4 bay it to keep my father's memories alive
Btw.... You can install TrueNAS to a USB... When you install, just have an extra USB in the system, boot to your TrueNAS USB, and install to that extra USB. Given how much I/O that drive gets, though, I'd consider putting two extra USBs in there and software RAIDing them....
@@nascompares- so my perspective is this: if I'm building it for my home lab (I'm an IT pro, so my lab is, well.... extensive!) I'm comfortable with it. I bought a couple of good quality 128GB USB3 spec drives, and my NAS platform has 2xUSB3 on the Mobo so I can put them inside the box and avoid physically damaging them. They're mirrored, and my boot unit failed - it didn't auto-fix itself, but it was pretty much as easy as changing the boot order. With 128GB, I got no warnings about log space or anything, so - good enough! I have two older PCIEx2 to 8xSATA card in there, QTY 2 5.25" to 4x2.5" adapters, and my tower system has 2x3.5" bays by design, plus the floppy forms the 3rd, and a 4th is... um... zip-tied under the drive cage.... So, 2x128 USB boot, 2x240GB SSD for caching, 2x2TB SSD for mirrored SSD space, and 4x12TB 7200RM for bulk storage in RAID-Z1 (R5 equivalent). It's been running TrueNAS Scale since it came out of beta, runs 7 VMs, storage for backups, a very large media library, and so on. Rock solid stable, so I can't complain!
Cracking video. I was thinking of using a mini pc with the tr-004 as a 4k Dolby Vision Plex server... should I go down this route first of just install Plex on the mini PC and hook up the TR-004?
Can I transfer my 2413+ os onto a custom built PC, with latest PC parts (12 bay rack mounted chassis). I like my Synology, I just want to change my form factor
Hola ya que he visto tu vídeo, quiero que me aconseje sobre el sistema NAS, actualmente tengo un NAS de terramaster arm, quiero cambiarlo pero estoy investigando si es más viable comprar un F2-424 de la nueva serie o una mini PC e instalar Unraid, que me aconseja?. Un mini PC si aguanta el estar conectado y prendido a todo momento como pasa con los NAS ya listos? Gracias por tu sugerencia
Don't use usb connected storage with truenas for anything other than occasional backups, it's in their documentation. it's too unreliable. The same is probably true regarding unraid.
Nah, they have pre soldered internal boards (combined SATA+Power), which are connected to an internal mini-sas/sas cable, which in turn runs into a USB controller board, which has a physical external USB female port
@@nascompares Interesting. I'd like to see the internals of one of these devices. If the bare boards are available, they might be useful to me for a particular NAS project.
A NAS is a network file sharing server. You can setup file sharing on every version of Windows since Windows 3.1 (Windows for Workgroups). Honestly, you can set up file sharing on an MS-DOS system going back to version 6.0 and before. A NAS is NOT (necessarily) a Plex Server (or whatever). It's a network appliance that serves up remote storage. That's all. How it ever got conflated with these other network services is beyond me. NAS = Network Attached Storage (i.e. File Server).
@@TNotoriousAdam - I have watched so many videos where the CZcamsr is calling his Plex Server a NAS and conflating NAS with Plex. I was totally expecting this to be such a video but it wasn't. Plex is a specific kind of database server and can certainly use a NAS as it's storage but the two are not necessarily tied together. A SAN is similar to a NAS in that it is also a network storage device but it uses network protocols to bind the shared storage resources at a deeper level. A SAN's storage actually looks like a physical drive to a client computer. At the client level, you cannot Format a NAS file share but the client can (and must) format a SAN drive in order to use it. I have a Windows Server configured to be an iSCSI target computer (SAN). The computer has loads of storage that I can assign to different computers (Servers and workstations) on my network. This is all done using software that comes with the Windows Server OS. For the clients to connect, all you have to do is enable (install) the iSCSI Initiator service and configure it to connect to the iSCSI Target server, where the storage for that client has already been configured. All that stuff was really fun to learn and it will satisfy every nerd's sweet tooth.
@@GizmoFromPizmo Yeah I have a couple of servers made at home. I wouldnt call them a NAS as they do have network storage but its not the main purpose of the server. I run VM's and Plex off mine
@@TNotoriousAdam Well, I breakdown servers into two categories: File (and Print) and Application servers. Although a server can be both a file and print server as well as an application server, in an enterprise environment (where I spent my professional life in IT) you don't want to mix the two. If you have a Plex server running as a VM that's cool. If you have an application server go down, you don't want file and print services to go down as well. Application servers include services like email (MS Exchange), Database (SQL), Web (IIS or Apache), and other services (Plex). There are also ancillary services that you want broken out from either file and print or application services. Those ancillary services include Security services (network authentication servers) and network maintenance services (DHCP, and names resolution services (DNS and/or WINS)). May of the ancillary services can be run from a single server although I prefer to have my security server do just that and offload the other services to another box. If you walk into a network and the administrator has File and Print on the Domain Controller (I'm speaking as a Microsoft Network Admin), you know you're dealing with an inexperienced Admin. Anymore, with the advent of virtualization (Hyper-V and the like), you can have a few of those servers running on the same hardware, which exposes you to a degree of single-point failure but utilizes the hardware resources a lot more efficiently. I could go on but I've said enough.
Extremely expensive or an Intel or a small case or 1980s specs, none of them being acceptable ... ^ Besides, while I admit you could just toss the extra USB drives+PSU's when you buy a replacement, I still think the drives need to be physically attached to the machine to be practical. ^ That's why I'm looking for a case/machine I can run my own install of Linux on and put 4+ 12Gb+ drives inside to replace my numerous insufficient USB drives.
Not really true. I put together an Unraid NAS using a mini-pc over the summer. I’m using an Orico 5-bay USB enclosure (JOBD) with an array of 3 old repurposed disks plus 1 parity disk. The fifth slot has a 250 GB SSD as a cache drive. As it turns out, one of the disks started to fail so I replaced it and Unraid happily rebuild the new drive while I maintained access to the data with no problems. The server hosts Plex and is used as a backup for my main PC. I know they say be careful with USB drives, but I’ve had no problems at all over the last 5 months.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:02 🖥️ *Introduction to turning a Mini PC into a NAS*
- Explanation of repurposing a Mini PC into a NAS.
- Mention of the Mini PC used in the video.
- Disclaimers about using a Mini PC as a NAS.
01:57 💡 *Pros and cons of using a Mini PC as a NAS*
- Pros: Cost-effectiveness, sustainability, power efficiency, and connectivity options.
- Cons: USB limitations, potential stability issues, drive identity conflicts, and separate power connections.
04:29 🛠️ *What you need to convert a Mini PC into a NAS*
- Required hardware components, including a Mini PC, USB drives, SSDs, external storage, HDMI monitor, and keyboard.
- Mention of specific Mini PC options and external storage solutions.
07:31 📥 *Obtaining necessary software and tools*
- Instructions for downloading the necessary NAS operating systems (TrueNAS and Unraid) and Rufus tool for USB creation.
- Guidance for preparing USB drives with the chosen operating system.
17:45 ⚙️ *Preparing the USB drive for OS installation*
- Extracting the downloaded zip file to the USB drive.
- Deleting the EFI folder (if present) and making the USB drive bootable.
19:25 🖥️ *Installing NAS Operating Systems (UNRAID and TrueNAS)*
- Explaining the installation process for UNRAID and TrueNAS.
- Discussing options for SSD installation based on the choice of NAS OS.
21:58 💽 *Choosing the Right SSD for NAS*
- Advising on SSD selection based on the Mini PC's M.2 or SATA support.
- Discussing SSD capacity considerations for various use cases.
26:27 ⚙️ *Setting Boot Priority in BIOS*
- Configuring BIOS settings to boot from the selected USB drive for NAS installation.
- Explaining the process for both UNRAID and TrueNAS installations.
28:06 🌐 *Accessing NAS Installation from Web Browser*
- Demonstrating how to access the NAS setup interface through a web browser.
- Recommending an IP scanning tool to locate the NAS on the local network.
29:55 ⚙️ *Completing the NAS Installation*
- Finalizing the NAS installation and creating login credentials.
- Explaining that TrueNAS can be accessed via HDMI or web interface.
33:44 ⚙️ *Setting Default Boot Drive for NAS*
- Ensuring that the newly installed SSD is set as the default boot drive in BIOS.
- Explaining the importance of this step to maintain the chosen NAS OS.
36:41 📂 *Adding USB Storage to Mini PC NAS*
- Explaining the process of adding USB storage to a Mini PC NAS.
- Highlighting the importance of choosing the right external storage configuration.
37:23 🧩 *Differences Between UNRAID and TrueNAS for USB Storage*
- Contrasting the approach of UNRAID and TrueNAS when connecting USB storage.
- Emphasizing that UNRAID allows individual drive access, while TrueNAS may utilize external RAID or JBOD setups.
38:41 🚧 *Configuring USB Storage for UNRAID*
- Demonstrating how to configure USB storage with UNRAID.
- Discussing options for creating storage pools and assigning parity disks.
39:48 🛠️ *Setting Up USB Storage with TrueNAS*
- Explaining the process of setting up USB storage with TrueNAS.
- Advising the use of external RAID devices for redundancy and data integrity.
40:03 💼 *Conclusion and Considerations*
- Summarizing the video's main points.
- Reminding viewers of the advantages and limitations of converting Mini PCs into NAS devices.
- Hinting at future content exploring the pros and cons of this setup.
Made with HARPA AI
I wish there was great content like this for Home Assistant. Great videos, Rob.
The NAS on this end has been an old PC that gets mostly old parts over time. First one ran Win2000. An old laptop works too. These days the NAS has moved to different Linux/BSD distros including FreeNas/TrueNas. Biggest thing has always been what ever the setup, always have the 3-2-1 backup strategy setup along the way. You'll learn lots along the way.
EXACTLY! THIS!
Perfect! This will be very helpful when I do my tinkering with old hardware.
Glad I could help man
Superb
I would really want to see more of this type of content.
As a constructive criticism, I think by joining two tutorials in one, this might have been more confusing than necessary.
If you have to join the tutorials maybe add a logo of each system in the upper left corner.
All and all...
I understood you just fine, I just fear other people might not.
Thanks again though for your great work.
You are ABSOLUTELY right, and I debated for a long time about whether to make them separate. In the end, I decided that people might think it's a bit spammy to make two vids showing 80% of the same process. I am working on a 5 Good vs 5 Bad follow up to this (i.e. whether users should opt for using old/mini PCs for NAS') and if I get a lot of feedback/criticism about the merging of unraid and TrueNAS installs in this vid, oll definitely revisit asap and make separate ones. Cheers for keeping me on the straight and narrow man!
Even with no external storage but with just one or two internal NVME slots, one of these would be a very nice NAS for use when travelling, in your RV, or boat. When I want to pack along a bunch of videos, I rip the MKV files into much smaller mp4 files and the quality is plenty high enough when watching on a computer screen. When accompanied by a travel router, there is plenty of functionality and storage for two or more people on a trip.
I am toying with doing exactly that with this mini PC thing...the only barrier finding is losing 50% cap to the raid. Currently looking into m.2 riser cards that turn 1 slot onto 2..normally they are used for m.2 WiFi adapters, but gonna try it out
There is no easier install and setup than unraid IMO, no extra programs needed.
It's only on a usb stick though
Thank you, this was very informative
Cheers mate
What about adding ASM1166 NVMe card with 6xSATA for that minipc. Then use external power supply or pico psu for 3.5" hdds? Im using such setup currently and that pulls 9Watt when idle.
Very informative video well done ... my question ... is the win os needed for this application? Thanks
I have no Problems with a usb enclosure and Unraid for about 6 years …. its reliable … and now ? 😎
Depending on your requirements, You can simply use your router plus a cheap raid enclosure. Bought a Trip-lite 2 bay enclosure for about $80 bucks and installed dd-wrt software on my WRT1200AC router. The DD-WRT software has a miniDLNA server running on it. This allows me to stream my music, movies, and send hourly back ups off my computer without a hitch. Probably if you had a household of 3 or 4 people accessing it, it would struggle but for one person it works perfectly. Actually, you probably don't need to install DD-WRT since most decent routers have some sort of media server built in.
I'm guessing most house holds really don't need much more than that.
Excellent guide m8, spot on. It is worth pointing out however, that one can also try Windows Server 2022 Evaluation for ~180 days (possibly longer) and convert the evaluation with a key. The key can be had on offer at discount prices just like Windows 11 and Windows 10. Probably somewhere around ~$20 USD,…..
Very true. I think I did a vid on running it as a vm, but yeah. I SHOULD do a windows server, bare metal install vid
@@nascompares Definitely worth a go IMO and without question worth watching. The thumbs up are just waiting for the video. Special attention going to converting from a free Evaluation to key wouldn’t go amiss either if you’ve a mind to.
I'm dying to know.. what do you do with the time you save by writing M8 instead of Mate?
love the video, learned tons. love the shirt as well. so thats maybe a silly, silly question: how about windows 10/11 Storage Spaces ? can you build a NAS of sorts from that?
Were you spying on me? I was in the middle of editing my own video on a mini-pc NAS when this dropped. Of course, mine was a simple RAID1 setup, not this fancy stuff. 😉🤣
I'm not spying on you *ducks suddenly from window frame*
Those USB direct attachment boxes that do hardware RAID - what's inside them?
I'm a beginner to data storage look for a way to keep video pic and documents safe for long term mini pc with ORICO 2 Bay or 4 bay it to keep my father's memories alive
Great video/tutorial. Have try installing unRAID to your zimablade?
Not yet, still using it for other things + holding it 'as is' for when the zimacube drops for a casa os comparison
Just picked up a 5560u with 16gb and a half terabyte, brand new from Amazon, for £220. That's silly. Now to look at external drive bays.
For nas software have you had a look at Rockstor , Easynas or Amahi?
I've looked at Amahi and it's got some limitations. It's based on Greyhole and Ubuntu - if you are prepared to do the config, it's much more flexible.
Btw.... You can install TrueNAS to a USB... When you install, just have an extra USB in the system, boot to your TrueNAS USB, and install to that extra USB. Given how much I/O that drive gets, though, I'd consider putting two extra USBs in there and software RAIDing them....
Very true. I just know people aren't too hot on TrueNAS USB boot drives and expect a SEA of negatives if I did highlight this. Thanks for sharing man
@@nascompares- so my perspective is this: if I'm building it for my home lab (I'm an IT pro, so my lab is, well.... extensive!) I'm comfortable with it. I bought a couple of good quality 128GB USB3 spec drives, and my NAS platform has 2xUSB3 on the Mobo so I can put them inside the box and avoid physically damaging them. They're mirrored, and my boot unit failed - it didn't auto-fix itself, but it was pretty much as easy as changing the boot order. With 128GB, I got no warnings about log space or anything, so - good enough! I have two older PCIEx2 to 8xSATA card in there, QTY 2 5.25" to 4x2.5" adapters, and my tower system has 2x3.5" bays by design, plus the floppy forms the 3rd, and a 4th is... um... zip-tied under the drive cage.... So, 2x128 USB boot, 2x240GB SSD for caching, 2x2TB SSD for mirrored SSD space, and 4x12TB 7200RM for bulk storage in RAID-Z1 (R5 equivalent). It's been running TrueNAS Scale since it came out of beta, runs 7 VMs, storage for backups, a very large media library, and so on. Rock solid stable, so I can't complain!
Cracking video. I was thinking of using a mini pc with the tr-004 as a 4k Dolby Vision Plex server... should I go down this route first of just install Plex on the mini PC and hook up the TR-004?
Very helpful tutorial, especially for a real novice but your excessive use of "go ahead" makes it grating to listen to
Use Debian with ZFS and an 6 bay case connected via USB 3.x.
Possible in 2023 ?
Found it! cheers btw
Hello again! Nice one
Does old office computers handle 10-16tb drives connected through sata? Thanks!
Can I transfer my 2413+ os onto a custom built PC, with latest PC parts (12 bay rack mounted chassis). I like my Synology, I just want to change my form factor
Hi im having problems with Synology download station. I can't use it to download from CZcams can anyone help. Thanks great channel
I have an Intel NUC 9 Extreme kit, it have both USB 3.2 and thunderbolt ports. Can I use a DAS for TrueNas scale setup? Which connection I should use?
I can't figure out how to get the drivers working for Plex Transcoding on any OS
Hola ya que he visto tu vídeo, quiero que me aconseje sobre el sistema NAS, actualmente tengo un NAS de terramaster arm, quiero cambiarlo pero estoy investigando si es más viable comprar un F2-424 de la nueva serie o una mini PC e instalar Unraid, que me aconseja?. Un mini PC si aguanta el estar conectado y prendido a todo momento como pasa con los NAS ya listos? Gracias por tu sugerencia
the socket is called "M.2", not "M2 NVME". NVME is just a protocol not the name of the socket.
Don't use usb connected storage with truenas for anything other than occasional backups, it's in their documentation. it's too unreliable.
The same is probably true regarding unraid.
Wasnt this the mini PC that came bundled with malware?
YES! Working on a vid on this as we speak!!!!
@@nascompares LMAO
Those USB JBOD devices, they just have USB hubs in them?
Nah, they have pre soldered internal boards (combined SATA+Power), which are connected to an internal mini-sas/sas cable, which in turn runs into a USB controller board, which has a physical external USB female port
@@nascompares Interesting. I'd like to see the internals of one of these devices. If the bare boards are available, they might be useful to me for a particular NAS project.
That Ace Magician Mini PC you used in this video did not age well, with all the pre-installed malware and spyware that got uncovered lol
Yeap, these mini pc's are GARBAGE. He seemed way, way too exhuberant in his video.
A NAS is a network file sharing server. You can setup file sharing on every version of Windows since Windows 3.1 (Windows for Workgroups). Honestly, you can set up file sharing on an MS-DOS system going back to version 6.0 and before.
A NAS is NOT (necessarily) a Plex Server (or whatever). It's a network appliance that serves up remote storage. That's all. How it ever got conflated with these other network services is beyond me. NAS = Network Attached Storage (i.e. File Server).
Yeah its annoying that people keep calling these a NAS when its just a server running applications with storage on
@@TNotoriousAdam - I have watched so many videos where the CZcamsr is calling his Plex Server a NAS and conflating NAS with Plex. I was totally expecting this to be such a video but it wasn't. Plex is a specific kind of database server and can certainly use a NAS as it's storage but the two are not necessarily tied together.
A SAN is similar to a NAS in that it is also a network storage device but it uses network protocols to bind the shared storage resources at a deeper level. A SAN's storage actually looks like a physical drive to a client computer. At the client level, you cannot Format a NAS file share but the client can (and must) format a SAN drive in order to use it.
I have a Windows Server configured to be an iSCSI target computer (SAN). The computer has loads of storage that I can assign to different computers (Servers and workstations) on my network. This is all done using software that comes with the Windows Server OS.
For the clients to connect, all you have to do is enable (install) the iSCSI Initiator service and configure it to connect to the iSCSI Target server, where the storage for that client has already been configured.
All that stuff was really fun to learn and it will satisfy every nerd's sweet tooth.
@@GizmoFromPizmo Yeah I have a couple of servers made at home. I wouldnt call them a NAS as they do have network storage but its not the main purpose of the server. I run VM's and Plex off mine
@@TNotoriousAdam Well, I breakdown servers into two categories: File (and Print) and Application servers.
Although a server can be both a file and print server as well as an application server, in an enterprise environment (where I spent my professional life in IT) you don't want to mix the two. If you have a Plex server running as a VM that's cool.
If you have an application server go down, you don't want file and print services to go down as well.
Application servers include services like email (MS Exchange), Database (SQL), Web (IIS or Apache), and other services (Plex).
There are also ancillary services that you want broken out from either file and print or application services. Those ancillary services include Security services (network authentication servers) and network maintenance services (DHCP, and names resolution services (DNS and/or WINS)). May of the ancillary services can be run from a single server although I prefer to have my security server do just that and offload the other services to another box.
If you walk into a network and the administrator has File and Print on the Domain Controller (I'm speaking as a Microsoft Network Admin), you know you're dealing with an inexperienced Admin. Anymore, with the advent of virtualization (Hyper-V and the like), you can have a few of those servers running on the same hardware, which exposes you to a degree of single-point failure but utilizes the hardware resources a lot more efficiently.
I could go on but I've said enough.
Jonsbo n3 build. When?
Wow'ser...who taught you politeness?
Nevermind. HTwingnut just posted his n3 build/review video.
What happened to you in life that made you go negative man? Hope you get through it bud.
Extremely expensive or an Intel or a small case or 1980s specs, none of them being acceptable ...
^ Besides, while I admit you could just toss the extra USB drives+PSU's when you buy a replacement, I still think the drives need to be physically attached to the machine to be practical.
^ That's why I'm looking for a case/machine I can run my own install of Linux on and put 4+ 12Gb+ drives inside to replace my numerous insufficient USB drives.
And with USB HD devices on UnRaid you can’t have parity !
Not really true. I put together an Unraid NAS using a mini-pc over the summer. I’m using an Orico 5-bay USB enclosure (JOBD) with an array of 3 old repurposed disks plus 1 parity disk. The fifth slot has a 250 GB SSD as a cache drive. As it turns out, one of the disks started to fail so I replaced it and Unraid happily rebuild the new drive while I maintained access to the data with no problems. The server hosts Plex and is used as a backup for my main PC. I know they say be careful with USB drives, but I’ve had no problems at all over the last 5 months.
@@jamesmcmillan5138 Yeah and on USB it' gonna fail gain, again and again, forever....
I have no Problems with a usb enclosure and Unraid for about 6 years …. its reliable …