This is technically a NAS...

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0:00 Intro
1:14 Why are we doing this?
2:25 How I made a NAS
8:21 Overall thoughts

[JeffGeerling]

I like your shirt.

And the duck tape. Nice touch!

[iviaverick]

I have had nothing but issues trying to use external USB enclosures with large disks (12TB each). Especially hardware RAID boxes. I finally said screw it, cut a hole in the top of the mini PC I'm using as the server, and ran an m.2 to SATA adapter card to connect to esata enclosures, foregoing USB entirely and doing software RAID. It's a frankenstein setup for sure, but ends up being more problem free in the end.

[Fasthandsslowlaptimes]

I love how far your channel has come. Your editing is growing in to a great style of its own. Keep it up dude!

[bahamatom]

Terramaster is definitely the budget friendly home lab/backup go to, in my opinion. Even though USB is "not recommended" running ZFS, I have not encountered any issues using usb storage as the boot drive (mirrored) in my F2-423 setup, for almost over a year and a half. I have 2 of them, in my setup. One is a SSD NAS running TrueNAS Scale, NextCloud, Syncthing, Tailscale. That is used to sync my iPhone contacts & photos (iCloud ain't getting my money and data LOL), Laptops and various devices data & configs, legally obtained Plex media (Plex runs on another device and not any of the NASes), and the other NAS (HDDs) is running TrueNAS scale, Syncthing to backup the SSD NAS (Only Photos, Contacts, device data & configs. I don't waste space backing up the Plex media, if that is gone too bad). I also backup all my important data and configs to Blu-ray monthly and store the disk offsite. I had no clue Terramaster even sold a 6 bay DAS, I knew of their 6 bay NAS (that looks the same). Keep up the good work proving "da haters" wrong, that just because something is not recommended doesn't mean it doesn't work at all, and doesn't have a use case. I will let you know when I encounter problems with my USB mounted boot drives. Anyway keep on trucking my fellow Jenker.

[jdlarrimo]

Something like this really makes sense for a remote backup at a friend’s house. Low power, relatively cheap, and easy to stash. You have an off-site backup, and your friend’s wife doesn’t complain about an outrageously high power bill every month.

[zackwalker]

YouTube algorithm. This man is not only a genius, but he’s so good at handling small things.

[timsandman]

You manage to make the most interesting videos out even a DAS! Well done many thank yous 🙏🏻 👍🏻😊

[CloudYak]

Wow! Great video! Such a good idea! I always knew you were the best YouTuber ever!!!

[Konfusionrave]

My first "NAS" was a similar setup. Cubox-i controlling 4 hard drives over e-sata. Worked very well for what I wanted.

[danielberglv]

The article that you show (The MAC 911) is about adding multiple single usb enclosed drives to a raid setup. The issues addressed by this has nothing to do with your setup, since you are using a single DAS enclosure for all drives. This setup works perfectly. I have been running this for years without issues in a ZFS RAID-Z.

[kevinhu]

This is a great idea cuz using USB give u more flexibility on what computer you can use for your server, opening options to a wide range of Mini PC with ultra low idle power (whereas these PC do not have many sata port/power for regular HDD connection). I'd also suggest SnapRaid + Mergerfs to take it to another level, giving even more flexibility. I've been using external HDD running on a random PC with samba as a file storage for a while so I approve your setup.

[surfacingcom]

The real treasure was the hard drives we bought along the way

[JasonPVermeulen]

Thanks for this enlightening video!! 😂

[KunouJS]

I actually have a similar setup to this, but without RAID, and OMV is in a virtual machine under Proxmox (hard drives passthrough) in my Chinese mini PC. It's been running solid since I built it 3 or 4 months ago.

I have a Yottamaster DAS instead, which is almost 3 times cheaper (but 5 drives instead of 6). I think it's 3.2 USB as well, but I could be wrong.

I use this setup to backup my main NAS and do other things under Proxmox.

[ankitkumar]

What if the mini pc is dead, since raid info is in the pc, will the arrary disks in the bays be useless and unreadable?
Thanks

[techaddressed]

Brett - I seriously was thinking of picking up an enclosure for my HDDs to move my NAS to a spare mini PC. Instead I decided it was better to just convert my desktop into a full-time server. Not a crazy idea to do what you did by any means.

[Aick]

The Terramaster DAS is a pretty cool idea. But holy hell $300 for an disk holder? if it were 100-150 sure that is a hell of a deal, but you can buy a used case, several USB to sata adapters, and a USB hub, plug in and go for 1/4 the price. And yes build it yourself is most always going to beat buying a prebuilt, But this seems very Niche for what it is. If they cut the price in 1/2 I'm sure they'd have a hard time keeping these on the shelves for Homelabbers.

[RollerCoasterLineProductions]

Didn’t know about the OMV USB raid trick thx for educating me

[coletraintechgames]

Raid Owl named his PC "Dat S" and every day is exited when he gets the alert "Time to back dat S up"

[CaptCoutu]

Jank is dank, I like the content. Keep up the good work 🤙