Hello guys.
I hope some of you can help me. First of all, I must say that I am not in the computer science field. As an old biologist, learning new computer tricks has been painful. Furthermore, I must say that living in Brazil, buying equipment abroad is neither easy nor cheap.
In the past years, I have accumulated a considerable amount of many kinds of data. Some of this data is very important to me (and/or relatives). For keeping these files, I bought over time two (now very old and obsolete) discrete NAS: the first a Vantec NexStar FX, and the second a D-Link DNS 320L. Back in that time, the performance of these two NAS was fine for my use. Sometime later I begun to use one or another as media server. When I moved from Windows XP to Windows 7, I learned about the lack of security related to these devices, for they are bound to use SMB1. For keeping them running in my home network, I had to enforce unsecure bypasses in all the windows machines I had or have since then. In other Operational Systems I used, I was always able to overcome the SMB1 issue by using system specific resources (as in Volumio) or by editing the client’s smb.conf.
As a management strategy I started to use the NexStar FX with a 2TB disc to keep my backups and the DNS 320L with 2 4TB discs in RAID 1 to keep my other data and to act as a media server. I even tried to use Plex in it, but it became sluggish and unresponsive. During a small period, it also acted as a storage for a D-Link surveillance camera, but not anymore, since the camera fried out. As a media server, it was accessed by a bunch of different clients: 2 smart TV sets, at least 2 Windows PCs, one Raspberry Pi 3B running Openelec, 2 Raspberry Pi A+ running Volumio, 2 music headless Debian PCs, and some Android devices running BubblePnP.
But in the beginning of 2021, while trying to replace Volumio with a Debian distro in one of the RPi A+, I discovered that I was unable to access the samba shares in my NAS. I put this project aside thinking it was due an overlooked configuration. Sometime after, while resurrecting an old Asus EeePC netbook with Manjaro, I also could not connect to my samba shares. I should have noticed earlier that my two headless audio PCs were locked out from the NAS too, but with my kids homeschooling due the COVID-19 pandemic, I was not using them as usual. After poking their smb.conf for some time I was able to see the music files but not read them, getting an annoying permission warning. Even now, I do not know what is happening, but I suppose the Linux machines upgraded to a smb version that prevents the use of the SMB1. This, adding to the lack of security of the SMB1, the proliferation of ransomware attacks and recent news of data loss by discrete NAS (as occurred with Western Digital devices) motivated me to upgrade my NAS solution to a more modern one.
At first, I was hoping to get another discrete NAS, such as Asustor, Qnap or Synology. But they are not under the reach of my budget. I then wondered if I could turn an old PC in a NAS, but I doubt the ones I have laying idle are capable of an adequate performance. So I bought a
cheap Celeron mini-ITX embedded motherborad, a small NVME drive to run the OS, and intend to use an 8GB DDR4 RAM that I already have around, and use the stripped HDDs from the DNS 320L in raid 1.
The first question is will this configuration be enough for audio and video streaming? Second, with the onboard SATA controller, will I be able to set up a raid 1 array? Third, do I need to add an offboard controler, since the card I bought has a 1X PCI-e slot? If positive, wich chipset? I found a lot of Chia mining dedicated stuff online, and I am not shure how to look for this card.
I have a lot of questions regarding the instalation process too. For example, what version of OMV should I use? What is the most recent stable version? Can I build the sytem without the HDDs and add them latter? Can I just unplug them from the actual D-Link NAS and hook in the new OMV and the data will be there?
Best regards!
