Constructing a Raspberry Pi powered NAS (Community Hooked up Storage) is without doubt one of the earliest initiatives achieved with the board. There was one thing concerning the $35 board again in 2012 that screamed “construct a NAS”, in all probability that it was operating a Linux OS. You’ll be able to spend massive on an incredible NAS setup, you’ll be able to spend sensible on a package such because the Argo EON, or you’ll be able to spend little and construct your individual. The latter is what Michael Klements has achieved, a $35 Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W powered NAS in a customized 3D printed case.
Lets tackle the provision of Raspberry Pi earlier than we dive in. Sure, Raspberry Pi are nonetheless arduous to come back by. Its getting higher, and 2023 will see extra Raspberry Pi arrive for retail. Proper now, you should be fast to safe a Pi. Utilizing rpilocator is your finest wager.
Klements’ challenge particularly targets a low price-point, however quite than use a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, or $15 Pi Zero W, they go for the Pi Zero 2 W, additionally $15. The reason being clear. The Pi Zero 2 W offers roughly the identical processing energy because the Raspberry Pi 3, in a smaller bundle. Storage choices are scaled again too. As a substitute of a giant 2.5 inch drive, which might inflate the worth of the construct to a few instances the price of a Pi Zero 2 W, Klements selected to make use of a 128GB micro USB flash drive. In a world of terabyte / petabyte storage capacities a paltry 128GB appears ineffective. However that 128GB of community storage is lots on your most important information. The micro USB flash drive was chosen on condition that the Pi Zero vary of boards makes use of micro USB for its solely USB port. Utilizing anything would require adapters and take up valuable house within the case.
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Speaking of instances, the 2 half 3D printed case was designed in Autodesk’s Fusion 360 and printed on a Creality Ender 3 3D printer. We’re not precisely certain on the mannequin of Ender 3, however the “Sprite” direct drive extruder makes us assume that’s might be a Creality Ender 3 S1 or the Creality Ender 3 S1 Professional, the latter being one of many finest 3D printers on your cash. The print took 19 hours, and Klements claims that it price simply $1 in PLA filament. The black case has been designed to accommodate the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and a small fan is related to the three.3V pin of the GPIO to suck air into the case, conserving the Pi cool and the noise low. The Pi Zero 2 W sits on the prime of the case and Klements has produced two variations of the case. One model allows the Pi to be screwed immediately into plastic mounting holes. However the model that piqued our curiosity used brass M2.5 inserts which are melted into place utilizing a Miniware TS100 soldering iron. This soldering iron was on our listing of Finest Soldering Irons and Soldering Stations, till it was knocked off the listing by its successor the TS101 which we lately reviewed.
Klements selected to put in Raspberry Pi OS Lite, a server centric model of the official OS. Utilizing Raspberry Pi Imager, Klements enabled SSH entry and pre-configured Wi-Fi entry. After that it was only a case of putting in OpenMediaVault, an software to simply create community storage units utilizing an internet based mostly interface.
The small measurement and pockets pleasant value are the important thing outputs of this challenge. We adore it and we are able to see it being utilized in many various situations. Transportable file sharing in co-working areas, on the commute into work or taking information to a mates dwelling. This $35 challenge seems to be nice and performs nicely.
Klements has documented the challenge through their weblog and offers the 3D fashions so that you can print by yourself 3D printer.