All flash NAS based on RockPi 4

Hi all.

I have a current setup based on a D-Link NAS with double WD Red disks in a RAID1. It's noisy, bulky, slow and overdue for a replacement.

My current plan is to buy a Radxa RockPi 4A (I already have one, really nice little beast, not mentioning the M.2 nvme slot), equip it with a big SSD and installing Armbian and OMV on it. Just wanted some opinions on this setup.

1. I realize going from a RAID1 to one single disk will make the setup less reliable, but how much? I don't want to spend my nights sleepless worrying for my data. On the other hand, most of the data I have is stuff that could be re-downloaded from internet. I also have an offsite backup (an old Excito B3) which pulls the really important stuff (like all family photos) once a week.

2. I'm planning to use the M.2 slot on the RockPi and the disk I'm currently looking at is a Crucial P1 2TB, which is kinda affordable. Does that seem like a sensible choice? Or should the price tag ring any bells?

3. I have never used OMV before, but have much experience with Linux, Debian and Armbian. Have I understood things correctly that the big advantage with installing OMV on Armbian would be the nice web GUI? I'm trying to read up on what's included with OMV and most of it seems to be things that are already there in any Linux and in Armbian in particular.

/Daniel

Zitat von mi-hol

Hi, for such a small capacity a 2.5 SATA HDD should be more than sufficient because there is no big performance gain from using SSD for data in NAS (see for reasons in the performance link in my signature)

Well, in fact, the primary reasons I want SSD are noice level (my NAS is way too noicy), size (it's in a cupboard with limited space) and power consumption.

Zitat von macom

That is why you need backup. And raid is not backup. I would not sleep well just because I have raid. In fact I dropped my raid and use rsnapshot instead to have versioned backup.

My thoughts about... RAID

https://blog.storagecraft.com/5-reasons-raid-not-backup/

OMV makes things easy. But it does not do anything that you couldn't do from CLI by installing and configuring packages.

Thanks! I realize raid is not backup, my thought when I bought this setup many years ago was that it would protect me from the case when a disk simply breaks. But I agree that it might not be justified.

But what are your thoughts on HDD vs SSD in respect to data reliability? Is there bigger or lesser risk of the disk breaking down and me losing my data (or at least needing to fetch it from backup) if I change from HDD to SSD?

Zitat von mi-hol

a SSD for data is a waste of money

Ok. I hear you. I guess that's a valid point...

So lets say I go for a 2.5" HDD instead (and then simply buy something like a Synology DS120j to put it in), which one should I buy? I would prefer a WD Red disk, but they don't seem to go over 1 TB in 2.5". Really don't want a Seagate Barracuda...

Zitat von mi-hol

I thought that was the plan

Yes, it was, since I was thinking in terms of a really small NAS with M.2 SSD. But if I instead go for a 2.5 (or even 2.5) inch HDD of course I also need to rethink what to put it in...