NanoNAS NanoPi M4 3-bay or 4-bay most compact and low consumption RAID

  • Hi Kirkdis,


    since your case is exactly what I'm searching for, I would also like to use it. I have only two questions on it:

    I assume it's working, but can I use the case with 2,5 " SSDs? From the pictures I would say yes, but just to be sure...

    Where can I find informations about your fan setup? Stramm wrote something about resistors, but I didn't find any information about that. Maybe I overlooked something, but can you please say something more in detail how to setup the fan? Thank you very much.


    Maginos

  • Hi Maginos,


    First of all thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.

    Here is the blogpost with the shoppinglist for my setup. www.scheisser.net


    For sure you can use SSD´s instead of HDD´s. My HDD´s are quite high due to high capacity at the time I purchased them.

    I recommend to test first if your drives fit properly by downloading the file 10-06discmnt.stl form thingiverse and try to mount at least 2 drives to asure that the drives fit to heightwise. With SSD´s the idle and standby consumption will drop massively. I would be happy if you post some photos of your setup when it´s done.


    best

    kirkdis


  • Thank you for your response.

    ah ok, now I understand. I thougt, you had to modify the plug connector of the fan, but if I see correctly, you can plug it in as it is, right? Or did you modify the cables of the fan with resistors?

    Ok, this will be a bit difficult, because I'm not printing the parts by myself, and I don't know, if my friend has two SSDs left to test it. But I think, that there will be no problem, since SSDs are lower in height and and the holes for the screws should be in the exact same position.
    Yes, the low power consumption is actually a very nice side effect of this small project, which got now the highly important task to store and restore my backup of my Weather Station Raspberry Pi.
    If the case is looking nicely, I will post some pictures, I promise. :D The first part is already printed and we already ran into the first problem. The four sticks for the fan were not printed properly, so he added a supporting structure (Stützstruktur) and we have to get the four sticks out of it by hand. Let's see, how this will work. He also said, that this is a problem of the printer, that it has some problems at specific tasks, so I don't blame your template for this. :D

    Unfortunately, he's not at home right now and will return in 2-3 weeks, so this project will take some time. And I have to get the fan first, before I can assemble it.

    cheers
    Maginos

  • The prototype photos show the fan connected to the big molex connector but I finally soldered both cables on the other side of the board to the connector pins due to the fact I didn´t had this conntector available.


    If you use a 12VDC fan you don´t need resistors all you have to do is connecting it to the pins which are bridged with the power supply input connector. you can easily identify these with a multimeter. Are you from Germany because you use the word Stützstruktur?

  • Today I bought the NONOIse G5015S12D DC12V 0.080A on ebay, so yes, I have a 12 V fan.

    I assume you mean the two pins left of the 4-pin 12 V input connector on the SATA hat (which are labelled as "Fan" on the homepage of friendlyelec), right? So I just have to plug the fan there? That would be easy. :D

    Yes, I'm from Germany, actually my second home is Erlangen. ;)

  • I´m not sure which pins I connected the fan to exactly but I will check back.

    Oh Erlangen- usually I pass your second home on the way to work daily. In case you need help with the printing come back, I´m happy to support.

  • Hi Kirdis, the last part of the case is in printing, I hope to get all parts tomorrow and that I can put everything together tomorrow evening.

    I've got one last question: How do you control the fan? I found this on the internet:

    https://forum.armbian.com/topic/11086-pwm-fan-on-nanopi-m4/

    and this:

    https://forum.armbian.com/topi…ab=comments#comment-92709

    I did everything as the people there suggested, but the fan doesn't spin. The service "fancontrol" is active and running btw. How did you do that? The latest temperature of the NanoPi M4V2 is 48 °C.

    Thank you for your help!

  • Hi Maginos,


    sorry for the late reply. I soldered the fan directly to the 12V and GND pin on the sata hat. My fan is spinning constantly as soon the power supply is connected. find photos below for the location of the pins.


    I have to admit that a pwm controlled fan is the better solution keep me updated if you figure out how to get pwm working. Thanks






  • kirkdis

    Hat das Label OMV 4.x entfernt.
  • This is awesome, thanks kirkdis!!


    I’d like to try this. Do you think it make sense to go with the M4V2? I’m not sure if the extra money will result in an improvement of the speed.

    Hi Pakcjo,


    Check this link which explains the difference between V1 & V2. In my opinion the LPDDR4 ram of the V2 is faster but I assume that this will not add much to the overall power of the NAS. More relevant will be to compare the 2GB Version to the 4GB Nanopi... If you get a V1 with 4GB much cheaper than the V2 then go with the old one...

  • Thanks for the long thread full of pictures and explanations! I swear it has been more informative that some dedicated NAS-related tutorials and guides I've read/watched recently.

    The thing is that I'm thinking of building a RP4 based NAS for when I'll be able to get some real estate in Greece for the holidays, and as far as there are travel restrictions, I figured I'd study thoroughly everything I want to have/do there, and a NAS integrated to a smart home network is one of these things.

    Once again, thank you for all of that precious information!

  • Hey kirkdis , I've built a mini-NAS based on the Nano Pi M4 v2 and used your 3d printed case for the project. If you want to learn more about it, I've written an article that you can read here: https://cgomesu.com/blog/Nanopi-m4-mini-nas/. I've made a few comments about the 3d printed case as well (https://cgomesu.com/blog/Nanop…my-opinion-about-the-case) that you might find useful if you ever attempt to redesign it. (I printed two cases and my second one was much better than the first one that I used for the mini-NAS shown in the article but overall, I think my comments about the case still apply). Just wanted to say thanks for sharing the case and idea for this SBC-based NAS solution. --CG

  • Hi cgomesu,


    first of all thanks a lot for the honest review and sorry for the late reply! I appreciate your feedback a lot as well as your detailed manual how to build this setup. I never had the time to do such a nice manual. I´m sure a lot folks out there used it already and your bonus content with the rtc battery makes total sense.


    Back to your improvements:

    As the fan on my setup was directly quick and dirty soldered to the pins I needed to design two parts, the fan mount and the upper case. Your review makes me thinking about changing some parts to make it simpler but that needs some more soldering (e.g an additional fan connector) but the biggest issue are the complicated 3D parts for now.


    If you print the upper case you have to add supports. To get rid of these after the print is finished is a pain in the ass but I´ll try to test a few upgraded cases and maybe there is a way to print and get the supports out there easily. We´ll see...


    For the actual case the upper cover has to be that flexible with the actual design as it is a "clamp on mounting" without any screws needed. Yes, I agree this is not the best solution but at the time I designed the case this was the only way which came into my mind preventing false air into the heatflow. I´m sure there are other solutions but to make the upper case more sturdy or thicker is not feasible in this case. I tried it before and these upper cases were not mountable anymore due to stiffness. You need a printer which is well tuned and good experience of the filament used to achieve a perfect upper cover. My second case I printed is still in perfect condition after 2 or three times dismantling.


    I will keep you updated here about progress.


    Thanks again for your great work and efforts to write your blogpost.


    kirkdis

  • I'm not trying to step on toes here, but for the top piece, why not recess the button bindings all the way around the bottom and remove the need for supports? Or, print the entire thing as 1 piece and create a rectangular button lid allowing the drives to be entered in a swapping fashion from the side , the finger hole to pull the lid could also be used as intake/outake. You could also replace the button bindings with ribbed bindings, this would allow thicker layer heights with reliable dimensions.


    nanopim4-cgomesu-case02.jpg


    I think it might be worth mentioning to not print this with PLA. PETG seems like the cheapest and safest material to use to negate future climatic deformation. PLA is great for lightweight functional parts, but so long as you plan to replace them (and dehydrating PLA won't help this). Also, for that exact printer, it might be worth measuring the X and Y axis as the layers appear to be shifted (and possible under extrusion). Or if cosmetics isn't a concern, bump the extrusion width up a bit and double the layer height (the quick and dirty guarantee).

  • Hi olduser,


    Zitat

    I'm not trying to step on toes here, but for the top piece, why not recess the button bindings all the way around the bottom and remove the need for supports? Or, print the entire thing as 1 piece and create a rectangular button lid allowing the drives to be entered in a swapping fashion from the side , the finger hole to pull the lid could also be used as intake/outake. You could also replace the button bindings with ribbed bindings, this would allow thicker layer heights with reliable dimensions.


    olduser Thanks for your ideas. Let me explain why the actual design is like that. I don´t really understand what you mean with the button bindings but I assume you mean the holes for the USB and RJ45 ports on the side. Yes, I know that these are quite fragile but if you handle them with care when you merge the upper cover with the board and your print is done perfectly these will not break. I have a fully functional working case here and already teared it down two times without breaking it. These bridges between the ports are needed to prevent false air coming into the case as there is only one fan which transports the intake air through the drives and also cools the mainboard. False air may cause the drives getting too hot.


    Coming to the swapping idea for the drives in the lower case. This came also to my mind when I designed this case but it was more complicated at that time for designing. I will have an eye on it when I find time to redesing the case.


    For the ribbed bindings this could be a solution. Another one came into my mind when I read cgomesu´s manual. For the next design I will design a combination out of a more parts and try to fix the board with screws but let me check what is possible. I will keep you updated when I need some feedback on new designs.


    A one part design is hard to achieve as the cables are short and you have to get them connected somehow to the drives and the board. So the two case design is much better for this and is easier to print. Imaging the lot of support material is needed and the struggle with getting rid of it after the print is finalized. The case is only that compact due to the two separate case housings.


    Zitat

    I think it might be worth mentioning to not print this with PLA. PETG seems like the cheapest and safest material to use to negate future climatic deformation.

    I think you are mixing up things with the materials. PLA is the more environment friendly material out of both which is produced from renewable materials and also is at some point biodegradable. PETG is definetly not biodegradeable and more harmful for our earth and the climate. So prefer PLA over PETG!


    I´m happy for every post and feedback!

  • kirkdis , it's great to hear from you. If you ever decide to update the case, please feel free to ping me here. I've made a few changes to my mini-NAS article since my last post that you and others might find useful (https://cgomesu.com/blog/Nanopi-m4-mini-nas/#update-tracker). Briefly, just comments about my experience running the latest vs legacy Kernel with the second version of the NanoPi M4 (had a few issues related to kernel panics that managed to fix by reinstalling the OS with legacy, 4.4.x Kernel and changing the cpu governor); and I've rewritten the fan controller for the PWM fan connector on the SATA hat (https://github.com/cgomesu/nanopim4-satahat-fan). --CG

  • This is an export of my energy consumption in 2020 by today (mid December)


    measured with a precision energy meter the SEM6000 from Voltcraft which has quite good measurements.


    In the first 3 months this year my NanoNAS was not constantly online. Since April it was online and occasionally used for storing data.



    Year Month Consumption(wh)
    2020 1 0
    2020 2 2271
    2020 3 2962
    2020 4 4475
    2020 5 4625
    2020 6 4489
    2020 7 4634
    2020 8 4605
    2020 9 4464
    2020 10 4616
    2020 11 4532
    2020 12 1569


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