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Raspberry pi as nas and wireless HDD?

ETHREAL1
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So I have this idea to make a bunch of raspberry pi based mini NAS boxes for windows backup or media or whatever they decide to use it for for friends but I have a few questions,

  1. can any of the raspberry pi (preferably the zero w) power a (as in one) 2.5 sata drive?
  2. can sata be adapted to the General IO pins?
  3. how hard would it be to make a VERY simple GUI to input WI-FI passwords and see storage space? (just like a percentage value not a file explorer)
  4. can it be made so that on boot if no known WI-FI networks are found within say 1 minute it can make its own mini WI-FI network to still allow SSH, and windows backup for like vacations or such?
  5. how hard would it be to place a HDD activity indicator, beeper, and power button to allow for safe shutdown?
  6. how hard would it be to add a battery pack to the device for on the go wireless drive capabilities?
  7. how hard would it be to add UPS USB power information to allow for safe power off state in the event of a power outage?

so I know it’s a lot and I think ive made some progress, I’ve heard of some thing called samba, is there something better to use? Any assistant would be great, I have an old raspberry pi 2 to test with but this is a bit out of my depth and I’m not very good with Linux command prompt...

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3 minutes ago, ETHREAL1 said:

So I have this idea to make a bunch of raspberry pi based mini NAS boxes for windows backup for for friends but I have a few questions

  1. can any of the raspberry pi (preferably the zero w) power a (as in one) 2.5 sata drive?
  2. can sata be adapted to the General IO pins?
  3. how hard would it be to make a VERY simple GUI to input WI-FI passwords and see storage space? (just like a percentage value not a file explorer)
  4. can it be made so that on boot if no known WI-FI networks are found within say 1 minute it can make its own mini WI-FI network to still allow SSH, and windows backup for like vacations or such?
  5. how hard would it be to place a HDD activity indicator, beeper, and power button to allow for save shutdown?
  6. how hard would it be to add a battery pack to the device for on the go wireless drive capabilities?
  7. how hard would it be to add UPS USB power information to allow for safe power off state in the event of a power outage?

so I know it’s a lot and I think ive made some progress, I’ve heard of some thing called samba, is there something better to use? Any assistant would be great, I have an old raspberry pi 2 to test with but this is a bit out of my depth and I’m not very good with Linux command prompt...

1. Yes, if the power-supply you're powering the Pi from can handle it.

2. No.

3. Easy.

4. Yes.

5. Easy.

6. Just buy a readymade li-ion/lipo "RPi UPS" on Aliexpress or eBay, ie. easy.

7. Depends on the "UPS" you buy: some of them report battery-information via I2C, which means it'd be trivial. On the other hand, if you buy one that doesn't do that, you'd need a separate ADC and read the battery-voltage via that, which gets a tad messier.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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6 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

1. Yes, if the power-supply you're powering the Pi from can handle it.

2. No.

3. Easy.

4. Yes.

5. Easy.

6. Just buy a readymade li-ion/lipo "RPi UPS" on Aliexpress or eBay, ie. easy.

7. Depends on the "UPS" you buy: some of them report battery-information via I2C, which means it'd be trivial. On the other hand, if you buy one that doesn't do that, you'd need a separate ADC and read the battery-voltage via that, which gets a tad messier

Nice.... but it does beg another question can the general IO be adapted to USB? Or some other data moving interface that can then be adapted to sata?

 

and probably not but can the USB on say the pi zero w be let’s say reversed so that it acts like a normal external HDD via a USB cable?

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5 minutes ago, ETHREAL1 said:

Nice.... but it does beg another question can the general IO be adapted to USB? Or some other data moving interface that can then be adapted to sata?

No and no.

5 minutes ago, ETHREAL1 said:

and probably not but can the USB on say the pi zero w be let’s say reversed so that it acts like a normal external HDD via a USB cable?

Yes, you just need a USB OTG - adapter/cable, then you can pop in regular USB-devices to it.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

No and no.

Well that sucks a bit.... but if that’s not possible then the second question there would not be possible as I would need it for the HDD...

 

Also what I was meaning by the second question was not if I could plug a HDD into it but rather if I could have placed the HDD on the GIO if I could have the HDD plugged into the pi plugged into a full computer like a laptop and have the laptop just show it like any other USB HDD... but it apparent does not matter as the HDD can’t be on the GIO and the pi zero w only has one USB non power... :(

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Well can you possibly give me some reference to be able to do the things you say are possible? I would like to test to see if I can get it to work before trying to work out all the battery, and adapter, layout and 3d printing orders...

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39 minutes ago, ETHREAL1 said:

Well can you possibly give me some reference to be able to do the things you say are possible? I would like to test to see if I can get it to work before trying to work out all the battery, and adapter, layout and 3d printing orders...

1) Buy a touchscreen-display (Something like e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-inch-HDMI-Touch-Screen-TFT-LCD-Panel-Module-Shield-800X480-For-Raspberry-Pi/311872272215 works fine, instructions how to get it to work can be found on the Internet. The viewing-angles on that display suck ass, but for quickly changing settings or viewing info, it does the job well enough.)

2) Learn some Python-programming. I recommend learning Python 3, not Python 2, because Python 2 is outdated and will eventually be phased out, even if it is still heavily used at the moment.

3) Learn how to make GUI-stuff in Python with tkinter. Not exceedingly hard, though it may take some effort, if you've never done programming before.

4) Learn how to operate the GPIO-pins in Python with RPi.GPIO -- this way you can make the power-button of yours, add any extra buttons you might like and so on.

5) Learn how to use NetworkManager (NM handles connecting to Ethernet, WiFi etc.) from Python, so you can check if the Pi has connected to WiFi or not, to be able to add new WiFi-credentials and stuff.

6) Learn how to set up a WiFi AP with hostapd, then add ability for your Python-app to fire up hostapd, if the Pi is not connected to WiFi. NetworkManager is another option as it can also set up a WiFi AP, but I have never used that myself, so I am unable to provide any assistance there.

7) Look into the UPS-stuff. Most of the ones that can report battery-status and such have a Python-library for interfacing with them.

8 ) Think about 3D-printing the case last, don't waste any effort in thinking about it until you've got everything else set up, because you're likely to be taking things apart several times as you try things, and your whole setup may change once you figure out any extra stuff you may want to add.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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Thanks, your awesome! There are a few things ive found and would like your opinion, here is my current part list

So I’m also thinking of removing the USB connectors on both the sata adapter and the pi and soldering cables in between them to remove bulk, and because the eINK display uses that ribbon cable not the GIO pins im also thinking 6-8 buttons for navigation, I’m also hoping that the logic stack will be close to 15mm as that’s the size of the drive I intend to par with it.

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Also I’m hoping I can make an eINK GUI that is functional enough to be able to set it all up but if not how hard do you think it would be to have a http server for setup?

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19 hours ago, ETHREAL1 said:

Thanks, your awesome! There are a few things ive found and would like your opinion, here is my current part list

So I’m also thinking of removing the USB connectors on both the sata adapter and the pi and soldering cables in between them to remove bulk, and because the eINK display uses that ribbon cable not the GIO pins im also thinking 6-8 buttons for navigation, I’m also hoping that the logic stack will be close to 15mm as that’s the size of the drive I intend to par with it.

Do note that those three-colour e-Ink - displays, while exceedingly good and fancy for certain things, they aren't touchscreens and it takes 15 seconds to update the display's contents, so they aren't good for making anything interactive. The black-and-white ones take one second to update, so they're a better choice for interactive things.

 

As for the Pi Zero UPS -- did you pay attention to the fact that it only has a 1A battery? A typical 2.5"-drive consumes 0.5A all by itself, plus whatever the Pi, WiFi and such do, so it'd probably only last for 1 hour. You could, of course, always swap the battery for a bigger one -- 2500mAh or more would probably make more sense.

19 hours ago, ETHREAL1 said:

Also I’m hoping I can make an eINK GUI that is functional enough to be able to set it all up but if not how hard do you think it would be to have a http server for setup?

Depends entirely on how good you are at making your own websites and the backends. It's easy to set up a basic web-server with Apache, but you'd need to make all the code that actually does anything, like e.g. setting up WiFi-connections and such, yourself and then you'd also need to make the user-facing website. Basically, you'd need to learn PHP or something to make the stuff on the server-side, then HTML+CSS (and maybe JavaScript, depending on how interactive you want to make it) on the user-side.

 

I do not in any way or form mean to belittle you or anything, it just sounds to me that you are basically lacking in all the needed skills for this project, so, realistically, you'll probably be spending up to 6 months on this. I hope you're not discouraged by that, though; it's always useful to learn new stuff and I hope you'll find it fun, too.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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23 hours ago, WereCatf said:

As for the Pi Zero UPS -- did you pay attention to the fact that it only has a 1A battery?

THANK YOU I did miss that, and I know it’s an ambitious project, and I have an entire year to figure it out thankfully, though at this point I’m thinking of just ditching having a display and going with some indication LEDs and some kind of http setup page, and all it need to do is modify some config files and from what I’ve been reading that pretty trivial, could probably even just have it show the config files raw and I will have to type in some instructions for the non technical folk

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Get a rock64. It's just like a raspberry pi but has usb 3.0.and gigabit ethernet, making it perfect for NAS use. 

AMD Ryzen R7 1700 (3.8ghz) w/ NH-D14, EVGA RTX 2080 XC (stock), 4*4GB DDR4 3000MT/s RAM, Gigabyte AB350-Gaming-3 MB, CX750M PSU, 1.5TB SDD + 7TB HDD, Phanteks enthoo pro case

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20 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

Get a rock64. It's just like a raspberry pi but has usb 3.0.and gigabit ethernet, making it perfect for NAS use. 

Would love the USB 3 but to thick for what I’m looking for sadly what I’m hoping for is something that with a battery and the “computer” is about 15mm, thick the depth of the drive I intend to use and no wider than said 2.5 drive... all it will really serve as is a wireless backup drive speed to the drive and wireless AC would be nice but Ethernet would not really be needed... that why I’m thinking pi zero w if you have something similar but with USB 3 would love to hear it but otherwise....

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10 hours ago, ETHREAL1 said:

Would love the USB 3 but to thick for what I’m looking for sadly what I’m hoping for is something that with a battery and the “computer” is about 15mm, thick the depth of the drive I intend to use and no wider than said 2.5 drive... all it will really serve as is a wireless backup drive speed to the drive and wireless AC would be nice but Ethernet would not really be needed... that why I’m thinking pi zero w if you have something similar but with USB 3 would love to hear it but otherwise....

Do note that Pi Zero W doesn't do 802.11AC, it only does 802.11n and even then only up to 72Mbps.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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14 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Do note that Pi Zero W doesn't do 802.11AC, it only does 802.11n and even then only up to 72Mbps.

Yes I am aware, this is why I said it would be nice if it has AC and USB 3

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