Pi as a file/media server, pros and cons....

Originally Posted by ondoho Happy anniversary! May I ask how you connect storage to it, what kind of storage, and how storage is powered?

Thanks! 10 years now.

Well the Pi has a microSD card slot already built in. Aside from that there are USB ports. I would assume that storage power would have to be provided externally from their own source. I have seen some devices have power via USB. For example, my wife has a smaller external drive that uses a 2.5" laptop drive and power and data are all done on a single USB cord.

The Pi 4 has USB 3 ports and can provide higher USB power than the older models. It is possible to power a USB hard drive without external power but you do need to make sure the PSU has sufficient capacity to power everything.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/document...ower/README.md

Originally Posted by Basslord1124 Well the Pi has a microSD card slot already built in. Aside from that there are USB ports. I would assume that storage power would have to be provided externally from their own source. I have seen some devices have power via USB. For example, my wife has a smaller external drive that uses a 2.5" laptop drive and power and data are all done on a single USB cord.

Thanks! But...
Are you saying you connected a laptop 2.5" drive to a raspi4 via USB and it doesn't require extra power?
Or are you saying that the storage on the microSD (how much?) is enough?
In either case, is the storage fast enough?

Originally Posted by ondoho Thanks! But... Are you saying you connected a laptop 2.5" drive to a raspi4 via USB and it doesn't require extra power? Or are you saying that the storage on the microSD (how much?) is enough? In either case, is the storage fast enough?

I haven't verified it, but I would bet the Pi4 could power and transfer from the little 2.5" external drive my wife has. Not sure if it'd be the same for all 2.5" drives.

I haven't really verified anything on the Pi yet. I still need to order some things first. As far as I can tell at this point, it appears that the OS is on the provided 32GB microSD card (Noobs). I'm not sure how it's partitioned and I doubt that the OS takes up that much space. In the coming weeks I should have more info.

The Rasperry Pi Foundation, Raspberry Pi Trading, and the various supplementary vendors are usually quite good about publishing the hardware specifications in great detail so you can plan quite well in advance. So if you do a little reading online, you should be able to get all the right parts in one order and save a lot on shipping. There are also a lot of third-pary measurements. However, one of the main reasons the RPi4 went with USB-C was so that the power supply could provide more current to peripherals. It can supply 15.3W and the RPi4 itself uses just over 5W to about 6.4W in measured tests so that leaves about 8.9W for your drives.

NOOBS (New Out Of the Box Software) is just the installer. When booted will created additional partitions and install the actual operating system of choice. Typically it only creates an 8 GB partition if I remember correctly and you can run a configuration script to expand to fill the card.

Originally Posted by Basslord1124 I'm not sure how it's partitioned and I doubt that the OS takes up that much space. In the coming weeks I should have more info.

If you go with Raspbian, either directly or via the NOOBS installer, it will not use more that 6GB or 7GB even with a little extra installed but I think it may require at least 8GB for the installation. The only part of the system that really needs to be on the microSD card is the /boot partition. The rest can be on the extra drive(s). Even that is not necessary if you have the RPi4 and do netboot.

Originally Posted by Basslord1124 I haven't really verified anything on the Pi yet.

OK, thanks anyhow.
I guess I should clarify: I still use an old laptop as my home server. It has a standard 2.5" spinning 1TB hard drive with loads of stuff on it that would need to be served.
I fear that a raspi will not be able to deal with it without an additional power supply; or is it even possible to connect it via SCSI or whatever it's called (meaning directly, not USB).

I hope I'm not hijacking your thread.

Originally Posted by ondoho OK, thanks anyhow. I guess I should clarify: I still use an old laptop as my home server. It has a standard 2.5" spinning 1TB hard drive with loads of stuff on it that would need to be served. I fear that a raspi will not be able to deal with it without an additional power supply; or is it even possible to connect it via SCSI or whatever it's called (meaning directly, not USB). I hope I'm not hijacking your thread.

No biggie...I have heard of folks using them as home file servers.

You can't do it directly to my knowledge, you'd probably have to use a USB to <whatever interface your HD is> cable/adapter.

Originally Posted by ondoho I fear that a raspi will not be able to deal with it without an additional power supply; or is it even possible to connect it via SCSI or whatever it's called (meaning directly, not USB).

You do not need to. Buy a correct power supply and RPi will handle one external hdd very well. At least it worked for me.

Originally Posted by pan64 You do not need to. Buy a correct power supply and RPi will handle one external hdd very well. At least it worked for me.

//Off Topic
Does a usb CD drive work rpi4? I tried it on my rpi3 a while ago. Not sure if I tried it with a powered hub but whatever I did certainly didn't work.

powered hub should work, but again, if you have a "strong enough" power supply one usb port can be used without that.

^ all this (2 power supplies, HD via USB) really makes me think that a used (and hopefully low-power) laptop is the better solution for my needs.
Or maybe some sort of mini-desktop computer (since I don't need keyboard, sound or screen)? I believe those exist.

BTW, as far as I am concerned that 1TB spinning hard drive is still fairly new and has quite a few more years to go, no need/desire to buy an SSD.

My current server setup however starts worrying me a little. I recently had to take the battery out because it would draw(!) so much power that the laptop shut off under load. That's how old it is.

Originally Posted by pan64 powered hub should work, but again, if you have a "strong enough" power supply one usb port can be used without that.

Thank you. That'll put the rpi4 up on the list for me. That 4g ram option helps too

Here at home I actually have a setup with a Raspberry Pi 4.

The good thing is that the Rasp 4 has USB 3 ports so you can connect those hard drives using USB with a theoretical speed of 5 Gbps.

I have replaced my old trusted home style server with a Core 2 Quad (90 Watt TDP mind you!!) with a Raspberry Pi 4 and 8 hard drives I put in a Fantec HDD enclosure (like this one). It works marvelous: I put Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server on the Raspberry micro SD card, put in the USB 3 cable and I have all drives at my disposal. Because I use it mainly as a backup server I have the drives in a JBOD configuration to allow for maximum space.

I can recommend trying out such a setup to save on power. As for the power of the Raspberry 4, doing primarily RSYNC backups the loads are next to nothing:

20:52:42 up 17 days,  1:26,  1 user,  load average: 0.03, 0.02, 0.00