NAS + ​Pine64 ROCK64 + Dropbox Synchronization

Hello,

Recently, I thought that I would really like to setup a personal NAS. However, I also thought that it will be a way more interesting to create a storage by myself. Here are a few reasons. Firstly, prices of pre-determined solutions (e.g. Synology) are probably too high for my needs. Secondly, I have a background in IT, so I consider this as an interesting experience with electronics and SBC. What's more, I have two unused drives that will probably meet my space needs.

I really need something with a USB 3.0 interface because I want fast communication via local and global network. My first thought - Raspberry PI. However, I was very disappointed, when I read that Raspberry does not have USB 3.0. What a shame! So I've started looking for SBC, which is both inexpensive and has at least one USB 3.0.
I found Pine64. I've read a lot, but I have some questions that may turn out to be crucial during choosing SBC or a cheap NAS device. I decided that it would be much easier to show what I want to create with the help of a chart, so I put one below.

SOFTWARE:

• Can all of the above functionalities be achieved using OMV?
• Does OMV work well with a Pine64? Should I rather think about a stronger version that has 4GB or more USB 3.0 ports?
• Is OMV enough for my needs, or do I need something like FreeNAS? I've read about FreeNAS, but I'm terrified that NAS software may require as much as 8 GB of RAM!

FUTURE PLANS:

• Ideally, it will be possible to purchase several IP cameras (no more than five) in the future and have a live-preview via OMV. What's more, I would like to achieve the recording functionality from the selected camera to the given folder. Perhaps this is trivial, but I imagine a situation when I am not at home and I want to set the recording for the next few hours or simply enable it when I forget about it (via Android Phone).
• I also saw the equivalent of OMV application, but for Android. It was probably OMV Remote Free. Does it contain all functionalities (or at least the most important ones) that OMV offers in Web Panel?
• I have an old, unnecessary tablet. I wonder if there is a possibility to use it in any way in connection with the NAS? I was thinking about a simple frame that will show disk resources, temperature etc. If not that, then maybe someone has an idea for something more interesting?

HARDWARE:

• The main bottleneck here is HUB. As I mentioned, it should be rather a NAS, which is very cheap and is based on elements that have been left from previous computers. Will there be any problems to use the USB 3.0 HUB to expand the number of USB ports and connect more hard drives?
  I would like to add that the two main disks will use the SATA / IDE Adapter - USB 3.0 with external power supply (at least one of them will have external power supply). If all of them will be using USB power (or even more in the future), could there be a problem? Can the bandwidth be reduced?
• I would like to keep the Multimedia (Movies, TV Series) on the external disk, but in such a way that after unplugging and attaching again, there will be no errors and PLEX will guess that it should use the right files automatically.

REQUIREMENTS:

• On YouTube, I saw that PS3 can be connected to a PLEX, but from what I remember from a few years ago, while playing multimedia from USB there were still problems with subtitles (TXT, SRT). Do I have to take care of the video format and subtitles using PLEX?
• Dropbox Connection - absolutely necessary function. I have a folder with photos - about 50GB. Priceless. I can imagine situations that someone steals my computer - that's why I have NAS and backup at home. I can also imagine the situation that there is a fire (or whatever) and I also lose the NAS. I would like data from several folders (Photos, Private Files) to be sent to my Dropbox account (1 TB) immediately. Is it possible? In the simplest terms, I want to implement a few simple schemes, e.g.

• Upload New Photos -> Send Them to the NAS -> NAS Sends Data to Dropbox
• Take a Photo using Phone (not necessarily being connected to my own network) -> Send Photo to the NAS -> NAS Sends Photo to Dropbox
  

  
  

  Of course, I'm talking here about really necessary data, not about FULL HD movies
  

I do not have any questions related to the FOLDERS, because I've read that ACL is very extensive, so it will certainly manage to implement such a simple scheme with division into three roles and several folders.

At first, it seemed to me that my NAS doesn't have to be very complex, but after a few days of thinking, the idea grew, that's why I'm asking if a cheap SBC with 2 GB of RAM is enough. More specifically, I'm asking about Pine64 ROCK64 - Rockchip RK3328 Cortex A53 Quad-Core 1.2GHz + 2GB RAM

Thanks in advance,
Filip

Thank you for all your answers!

Zitat von TechnoDadLife

2. Yes, but you probably be over taxing the pine board for all the things you want to do. Though I don’t have one.

That's why I thought it will be a good idea to add a few dollars and buy a version with 4GB of RAM. I'm specifically talking about Pine64 ROCK64 - Rockchip RK3328 Cortex A53 Quad-Core 1,2GHz + 4GB RAM The main point is that the only difference is the additional RAM memory that can not be expanded further. The processor's performance still remains the same.

In that case, I have a question. Why do ready-made NAS models that you can buy in the store have so small amount of RAM? The cheapest ones have only 256MB, and usually it is up to 2GB, not more. I suspect that it is a completely different RAM memory when it comes to hardware, but is it still enough?

Zitat von TechnoDadLife

3. Functionally, no difference between the two. Do you like Linux and lots of support or FreeBSD and minimal support. Your choice.

Definitely Linux!

Zitat von TechnoDadLife

2. Why do you want to unplug them?

Let's say I want to watch a movie at a friend's house, so I unplug the external drive and just leave the house. It is not a necessary thing, but I just wonder.

Zitat von TechnoDadLife

I think you are going to be much happier with a more powerful computer with bigger hard drives. You are going to fill up the ones you have very quickly.

Basically, I can probably agree with more powerful computer, although I'm wondering about the 4GB version of Pine64 (nevertheless, it's hard to say it's really more "powerful"). However, I will not agree with larger disks. I have calculated everything and the only thing I really might need is an additional disk for Windows backup. However, after a long reflection I do not need the following, since all the most important files will be either on the NAS/Dropbox or on both sources.

P.S. Love your YouTube channel, really inspiring!

Zitat von KM0201

Doing all that stuff over USB 3 (which a particular SBC wizard on this forum will probably be along shortly to tell you how much it sucks from a hardware standpoint.. and he's right) would be downright painful.

Well, I do not expect speed close to 640MBps. I am realist. After all, it would be much better to be able to operate at speeds closer to half that value than only at 20-30MBps My brilliant idea for a better disks performance is Power Supply Adapter 15W (5V/3A) for USB 3.0 HUB I'm not sure if it really will have a real impact on performance. What do you think?

While writing the following post, I came up with another idea - Pine64 ROCKPro64 - Rockchip RK3399 Cortex A72 / A53 + 2GB RAM with a ROCKPro64 PCI-E To Dual SATA-II Interface Card. Less RAM, but much better communication with hard drives. At least I hope so.

Zitat von tkaiser

Recipe for disaster. If you attach a disk to a NAS to share files from this disk needs to remain there since access semantics, permissions, file and folder name encodings and representation of metadata totally differs when you attach a disk to an client OS or to a server OS like Linux.

Also it's not recommended (and doesn't work as expected) if you use non POSIX compliant filesystems with OMV (that's FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ or all the other stuff all the client OS can deal natively with).

I did not think about it. In fact the answer turned out to be both very logical and obvious. I apologize for the stupid question and thank you for the quick, wise answer!

Zitat von tkaiser

Please be careful when talking about SBC. Pine64 is both a company and the name of their first board (which is crap as NAS). Their Rock64 combined with a single USB3 disk if you carefully choose the USB-to-SATA bridge (get their SATA cable since using JMS578) and your cabling (USB3-A connectors horribly suck) can be a good platform. As soon as you add more disks with an USB3 hub it turns into a crappy nightmare. The only viable solution for 2 disks on any USB3 equipped SBC is to avoid hubs and choose something like a JMS561 instead (2 port SATA port multiplier). But this has its own downsides so please search the forum for JMS561.

If I wasn't afraid of incompatibility related with several drives, probably the delivery man would be standing in front of my house with the packed Rock64

What do you think will be right for my needs if not SBC? Should I really build a server from scratch (using parts from a "normal" computer) or maybe it will be much easier to invest money in WD My Cloud Home 4TB? I will pay twice as much, but I will have 4TB of space (way too much for my needs) and probably no stability issues.