Raspberry PI Server

Peter_The_Ent · January 16, 2023

I want to build a Raspberry PI based storage server, and I posted a topic about this a few days ago, but it died, and I have gotten no response. I was told this:

What you would do is setup the Raspberry Pi as an SMB file server and connect your drives over USB. However, I did this with a Raspberry Pi4 which has a lot more chops than the Pi Zero (and USB 3.0).

I can't think the performance from the Pi Zero would be stellar, so I'll mention an often overlooked feature of most consumer routers....does your router have a USB port? I have two Linksys AX4200 routers and I have a USB 3.0 HDD hooked up to one of them that acts as my Time Machine server for my Macs and an SMB file server.

On 1/13/2023 at 11:23 AM, DrMacintosh said:

What you would do is setup the Raspberry Pi as an SMB file server and connect your drives over USB. However, I did this with a Raspberry Pi4 which has a lot more chops than the Pi Zero (and USB 3.0).

I can't think the performance from the Pi Zero would be stellar, so I'll mention an often overlooked feature of most consumer routers....does your router have a USB port? I have two Linksys AX4200 routers and I have a USB 3.0 HDD hooked up to one of them that acts as my Time Machine server for my Macs and an SMB file server.

I am not sure if my router does or not. I am busy and can not check now though.

I do have a few questions:

What is a SMB file server.
Can you connect multiple drives to it.
Can you put a password on the drives.
Also, can I hook the drives to my PI and then my PI to my router to have multiple drives available through the router? (assuming my router has an USB port).

On 1/13/2023 at 11:35 AM, Peter_The_Ent said:

What is a SMB file server.

SMB is a network file sharing protocol.

On 1/13/2023 at 11:35 AM, Peter_The_Ent said:

Can you connect multiple drives to it.

Theoretically yes. You either need multiple internal drive bays, multiple external USB HDD enclosures, or a multi bay HDD enclosure of some sort, either Thunderbolt or USB.

On 1/13/2023 at 11:35 AM, Peter_The_Ent said:

Can you put a password on the drives.

Yes

On 1/13/2023 at 11:35 AM, Peter_The_Ent said:

Also, can I hook the drives to my PI and then my PI to my router to have multiple drives available through the router?

In this setup, the drives would be hooked up to your Pi and then you would connect the pi to your router via ethernet which would do the file transferring over the network.