After removing the Raspberry Pi 4 from my kids’ Phoniebox and replacing it with a less power-hungry Raspberry Pi 3, I was looking for my next project. I’ve since moved away from NextCloudPi, as managing it with the iPad/iPhone/Mac was just too cumbersome. However, I’ve been wanting to replace the QNAP for a long time, and I’ve always wanted to try OpenMediaVault as a file server, including for TimeMachine backups.
The QNAP Mispurchase
What bothers me about the QNAP? I had bought the TS-431X2 for over €500, and it has a Quad-Core AnnapurnaLabs Alpine AL-314 1.7 GHz processor. Using Docker on it is not enjoyable, which was actually one of the reasons I bought the QNAP NAS. Unfortunately, the QNAP wasn’t much faster than the Synology I had before. But the worst part was the outdated libraries, especially with regard to the web server. You can install NextCloud with a lot of workarounds, but it’s far from user-friendly, and the support was not very helpful. And then there were constant error messages or warnings popping up.
In addition, setting up shared folders and so on is also quite complicated. I just got frustrated with the thing.
Is OpenMediaVault Better?
First of all, it’s different. OpenMediaVault is NAS software, but unlike QNAP or NextCloud, it doesn’t offer desktop syncing. You can’t buy ready-made hardware, plug it in, and have it work. It’s certainly not suitable for average users, but they probably wouldn’t buy a NAS from QNAP anyway 🙂
If you know a little about Linux, the installation is relatively simple:
- Flash Raspbian Buster Lite (or whatever comes next) onto a microSD card. Raspberry Pi provides an installer for Mac and PC. Just make sure to choose the Lite version, not the standard Raspbian.
- Copy an empty file named ssh to the boot volume so you can log in via the terminal (assuming you have an Ethernet connection).
- Insert the card and start the Raspberry Pi.
- Then find the IP address of the Raspberry Pi and log in with:
ssh pi@IP-ADRESSE
- and log in with the password raspberry,
- then, after all necessary updates, run:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
then it’s just:
wget -O – https://github.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin-Developers/installScript/raw/master/install | sudo bash
and then a reboot. After that,
- enter the IP in the web browser,
- use admin and openmediavault as the login,
- and you’re in.
My 1TB SSD was immediately recognized, but it had to be formatted and then mounted.
First Problems
Unfortunately, that was the end of the easy steps. For example, Sonos wouldn’t connect to OpenMediaVault. The trick is that you need to change the SMB configuration. This can be done in the interface. I was also a bit shocked at first by the following error message:
It couldn’t get much more dramatic. At first, I thought I had encountered a kernel panic. However, the error message only indicated that the session had expired.
Then came network connection drops, adding to the initial problems. And these were serious. My SanDisk 1TB Ultra SSD is brand new, but apparently, the Raspberry Pi 4 doesn’t like the adapter:
UAS_EH_ABORT_HANDLER is an error message you don’t often see. A bit of research shed some light on the issue. By the way, the change in /boot/cmdline.txt should actually be at the beginning of the line and not create a new line. If you do it the wrong way, the Raspberry Pi won’t boot anymore—I’ve already tried that for you 🙂
As slow as it was expected to be, the connection is not that bad now despite the quirk:
Just under 600 Mbps is something I’ve rarely seen, of course, this was measured on the Ethernet adapter, so it might not be as fast when writing to disk. But at least I haven’t had any network dropouts so far. What stands out is that the RAM is used much less than with the QNAP. And on the Raspberry Pi, I can even run R 🙂
Conclusion
Unfortunately, there is still no suitable case for my intended project. I’d like to fit the Raspberry Pi plus 2 SSDs into a case. That would obviously be a good excuse to finally buy a 3D printer, but honestly, I don’t have time for another hobby.
Overall, this setup with the Raspberry Pi and OpenMediaVault makes a good impression. For a fraction of the cost (under €100), you get more performance than with the expensive QNAPs or Synologys of the world.
Shopping List
- Raspberry Pi 4, 2GB RAM is sufficient, although the 4GB kit with power supply, case, and microSD makes more sense if you want to do more than just run a NAS with the Raspberry Pi. This kit also includes an HDMI cable.
- SanDisk Ultra 1TB
- SSD enclosure with cable: I can’t guarantee that the error described above won’t occur here.
- I also ordered some short patch cables.