New to OMV, please comment on ARM or x86

  • Hello everyone,


    Any feed back would be helpful, thankyou in advance. I am new to OMV(newborn yesterday). After mistakenlyviewing TDL's youtube – I was hooked. Have a need. Wow. Absolutelylove the simplicity.


    My trouble is deciding which hardwareplatform to use ARM? X86? What I want may not be what I should do or in thought headed towards...given OMV is my goal.


    Use case:

    • Centralize all personal documents, photos, videos, SW images.
    • Monthly image push (macrium) for pc backup.
    • Weekly perform small sized media backup's
    • All streaming is from I-net to LAN devices not the NAS.


    HW Requirements:

    • single board system, low power
    • Boot and run system image from 'fast storage', not usb. Prefer SSD.
    • One (1) SATA port (real sata) for SSD to hold content.
    • 2GB, 64bit
    • HDMI 2.0
    • GigE, USB 3


    SW Requirements:

    • OMV only


    Ancillary:

    • Case – not important, WiFi – if possible I'll use USB3 w/11ac else wired gigE, and ?


    Assume:

    • Home network – all good - GigE wired and 11a/g/ac radiates everywhere.


    Cost/Benefit:

    • For ARM deployment, I am unable to find above requirements. ODROID-HC2 ($60) is about the closest possible. That would make Debian boot/run from eMMC, a UHS-1 card. Wont this make performance bottleneck, just suck under load, during load?
    • For x86 deployment, I was able to find ASRock J5005-mini ITX ($120) has all the bells and whistles.


    Thoughts:
    From a technical standpoint, the x86system seems to make more sense.
    From a cost standpoint, I could easilypurchase two (2) ARMs and make them redundant. Pri/Sec.


    If cost is about the same, it seems thedecision process changes: going with ARM increases reliability butdecreases performance; going with x86 increases performance butdecreases reliability – given roughly the same initial investment.??


    In the past, I've always used an eSATA/USB3 cradle to back up “everything”. On top of that, I have dualdrives in every machine everywhere...and unknown bunches of freecloud accounts everywhere. Yep – it's a real headache.


    For quick board reference:
    https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-hc2
    https://www.newegg.com/Product…aspx?Item=N82E16813157808


    To save reading questions posted manytimes before, please comment on hardware direction understanding OMVis the goal and written above is where I'm at. Reply with link toappropriate post or on the web? Many Thanks --

    Odroid HC2/2GB/1TB HD (OMV4)

    Odroid N2/4GB/32GBMMC/(2)1TB SSD/(2)2TB HD

    Odroid N2/4GB/IFTTT misc drives/test unit

    Old Droid TRS-80

    Old Droid TI-99/4A

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Wont this make performance bottleneck, just suck under load, during load?

    Nope. Transfers are dependent on data drive speed. The SD card really only affects the web interface and since all arm images are using the flash memory plugin, a lot of things that slow it down are running out of ram.


    Prefer SSD.

    Why? A good hard drive can saturate gigabit. If you want it because of the lack of moving parts, then that is a ok reason. There are quite a few arm boards with mini-pcie slots for nvme as well which would be better than sata.


    ARM increases reliability butdecreases performance; going with x86 increases performance butdecreases reliability

    Not accurate. Lots of arm boards can saturate gigabit.



    So, with your requirements, I don't see any reason to stay away from an arm board.

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    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I agree. Using ARM it is easy to build a cheap power efficient high capacity NAS based on a tiny SBC and a huge HDD. And still fully saturate GbE.


    I even use several ARM ODROID HC2s, each with a big HDD. That made it very simple to add backup and expand capacity. In fact you can regard the HC2, with OMV, almost as a simple GbE network adapter for a HDD with the ability to allow the HDDs to stack vertically. :D


    And each unit is not only a OMV NAS but also a full Debian based Linux server.


    I even reduced the clock speeds on most of my HC2s in order to make them use a little less power and run even cooler. Out of the box the HC2 is overpowered to run OMV on a GbE LAN. I stacked the HC2s on one end of a shelf in a book case. And added a GbE switch, with a 32Gbps internal switching capacity, to connect the HC2s together and to the rest of my network.


    I have to admit that I would not have minded it if one of my HC2s had a 64 bit processor, more RAM, faster hardware ffmpeg coding/decoding and a slot for a NVMe SSD. But I would only need one single one of those upgraded units. To connect the HDDs to my LAN I would still use a bunch of my current HC2s.


    I boot from 32 GB SanDisk A1 micro-SD cards. I use one of the HC2s as a pure Linux server, without OMV, with a SSD instead of a HDD and the root filesystem on the SSD. I use it to stream video, music and run various server software like Node-Red and a mqqt broker. I might upgrade this unit this or next year, if some new nice ARM SBC, appear on the market. So far, no luck.

  • J5005-mini ITX


    Just in case you want to go the Gemini Lake route you should keep in mind that the J5005 is only slightly faster than a J4105 for example (the latter being less expensive), that the 'CPU horsepower' of both is only slightly above what the aged ARM Exynos processor on an ODROID HC1 or HC2 provides and that all of this is pretty irrelevant for a 'pure NAS'. Unless you want to run a bunch of additional services CPU performance is always ok and even ARM boards that are half as fast easily saturate Gigabit Ethernet. It's more about I/O and network capabilities and (lack of) hassles... e.g. having real or 'almost real' SATA ports to avoid USB3 hassles.


    If it's about transcoding you should double check whether those Gemini Lake SoCs allow for QuickSync acceleration on Linux (efficiently transcoding on the Intel GPU). If that's not possible you can forget about high resolutions/bitrates with something as slow as a Gemini Lake thingy (or to be more precise: everything Atom based from Intel)

  • Thank You All – so many fantastic concise points – thanks for the direction and solid informative.


    A small arm unit over a larger x86 boxdefinitely sounds so much more appealing (now) and it's a perfect fit forwhat I need after hearing this feedback.


    I will search around some more in theOMV forum prior to ordering any hw. This site is a Britannica ofinformation! Adoby made me think beyond just OMV.


    Sprinkling 2-4 of these around thehouse if I pilot the right unit would be easy. Relief compared towhat I am doing today. I was looking at a RK3399 last night, wow ...


    Many Thanks --

    Odroid HC2/2GB/1TB HD (OMV4)

    Odroid N2/4GB/32GBMMC/(2)1TB SSD/(2)2TB HD

    Odroid N2/4GB/IFTTT misc drives/test unit

    Old Droid TRS-80

    Old Droid TI-99/4A

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