Initial Look at Odroid HC4 - ARM Based NAS

Trying out an Odroid HC4 ARM based Network Attached Storage (NAS), which uses a toaster form factor to hold 2x3.5 inch or 2x 2.5 inch hard drives that connect straight through to a SATA 3 port.
Unlike a Raspberry PI 4, the Odroid HC4 has a PCIe bus, which will allows for a faster performance compared to USB 3.

Specs:
CPU: ARM Cortex A55
GPU: Mali G31
Memory: 4GB DDR4
Network: 1GbE

0:01 Introduction
1:30 Performance
6:02 Further information
7:20 Comparing to pre-build NAS enclosures

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[MrBiky]

I have no idea how I managed to forget this video existed. I do remember that you were contemplating to buy a HC4, but I forgot you actually bought one. I do remember those tests you did, but I forgot they were on the HC4. I bought one as well, inspired by your original plan (or rather, inquiry on the HC4). Bought 2x 10TB HDDs for it. I'll be trying ZFS on this, it will be fun. As long as I get 75 MB/s read/write on the pool via NFS, I will be happy.

I won't be running the official Ubuntu image on it, I'll build my own using Armbian's kernel, I just need to find a way to backup petitboot, before I wipe the SPI flash (u-boot is not compatible with petitboot). I'm currently testing the HDDs, so it may take a while for the tests to get finished. I also need to find a way to plug in a USB fan to cool the HDDs, those things get toasty and I don't like that.

How was your experience with the HC4 for the past 3 months, @quidsup ? I intend to use this poor thing as a low-cost container NAS using NFS and also as a typical file sharing box, only for myself to store some data on it, so that I won't need to attach USB HDDs to my RPi again (the RPi is my main desktop, I might be pushing the boundaries of what the HC4 is capable of, but it would not be fun otherwise. I'd rather push the SBC to its limits, rather than build a more expensive box that will be 90% idle during peak spikes.

[Jaun-Vincent]

Excellent! Thank you for this. Most helpful. 👍🙂

[davidkamaunu]

Where did you source that "toaster form factor" from?
I had created a Proxmox VE storage node using ASUS AM1M-A motherboard a PCIe M.2 NVMe with 256Gb SK Hynix for the system and boot device. addition of a PCIe SATA RAID card. 8Gb DDR3 1600 RAM.

[MrBiky]

I have had an Odroid HC4 for a while now, for the love of me, I can't get zfs-dkms to compile on it no matter what I try. Armbian's debian and ubuntu images work (and they are better than the Hardkernel's Ubuntu images that use linux 4.9), but neither ubuntu, nor debian manage to build ZFS. Other OS'es I tried managed to build ZFS on their versions of the kernel from the repo. The problem is that I cannot make their kernel to boot.

Petitboot is really nice IMO. But unfortunately, most guides and OS tell you to wipe its SPI flash and install u-boot. Unfortunately again, when I tried using u-boot, the board was incapable of rebooting. IDK why. It would boot debian (armbian) just fine, but when rebooting, it would just halt. Unplugging and replugging would work. Interestingly enough, Hardkernel's ubuntu image would boot on the HC4 even with the SPI wiped and was capable of reboots. So that's even more mysterious.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with it. I just started using BTRFS on it. Getting 100MB/s writes to it on large files, about 65MB/s reads. 2x 2TB SSDs in RAID 1 BTRFS. Does what I need it to do and not much else. SSDs on it are overkill, but I like the high random IOPS compared to HDDs. My next NAS will definitely be a RockPro64 or similar. I have one of these too, but using it as a router. It is way more usable and u-boot on it does work. And has support from more OS.

Quids, if you still see messages on yt, what's your opinion on this after 9 months of having it?

[ifell]

I did think about using a pi a year ago, glad I didn't now.
What distro are you running?

[kmcat]

Just a comparison of the NAS I build last week.
As the once on Amazon, just looked really under powered and over priced

WD gold 6TB drives = £70 *6
i5-8500T 6 Core = £70
1151 MB = £60
HBA = £70
32GB DDR4 = (Had laying around)
PSU 80+ gold sliver stone = £40
500GB SSD = £50
Total £710 with HHDs // £290 Without HDD
My internal network is my bottle neck

[arnorobinwerkman]

nice wallpaper, can you share a link?

[robertfrayer]

Looks like Thermal Throttling. It is common place with odroid. Get a faster RPM fan.

[heisenberg]

Can i assume that the bottleneck will be the HDD?

[JessicaFEREM]

All Toshiba drives I've owned have failed except for 1 of them. Don't buy their laptop drives because they all want to fail at least for me

[watsoft]

I really don't share your enthusiasm for Toshiba "branded" devices.