Making a new NAS (sort of)

[Bob Williams]

Discovered that my old NAS, a Zyxel nsa 310, does not work with Windows 10. Struggled with it, asked Zyxel Support for drivers and was informed that it cannot be made to work in 10. I have had the NAS for some years now and have been growing more fed up with it, even still in 7. Zyxel also informed me that I would not be able to use the 2 TB Seagate Hdd in anything else, because 10 is not capable of formatting and resetting it. Well, I have news for Zyxel: I have installed it into my external USB case and  formatted it. Then I turned it into a network share to Everyone and will use it for backups. Fortunately I am a belt and braces PC user, so I had made a backup of the backups. Losing my thousands of pics and music tracks, is not an option. The current external case is USB 2, so I have sent for a USB 3 case to get better R/W speeds. The old case will go to my son, who has a 2 TB drive waiting for it.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Dave Rice]

Nice one Bob.

It’s just a SATA hard drive, but most of the modern USB mobile drives aren’t. Not relevant in your case but if anyone was thinking about cannibalizing one…

 

[D-Dan]

As a cheap alternative, esp with USB drives, set up your NAS on a Rasberry Pi. I’ve been running one with ext4 for 2 years with no problems. You should be able to get it going with NTFS with no issues, and the advantage is, complete control.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Dave Rice]

You could even follow this How To Raspberry Pi File Server in Blogs 😀

[Ed P]

Useful link Dave. Just to cook the goose a different way I use Apache rather than Samba.

As background, I have never had much luck with fish pond wifi thermometers, they last six months then give up the ghost. I’m now using a pi zero W + AZDelivery 2 x DS18B20 3m Cable Temperature Digital Thermal Probe Sensor as a cheaper alternative with the Pi zero sitting in a shed a couple of metres from the pond.  Apache on the pi enables the zero to serve data files over wifi, and a simple python fed web-page on the pi enables me to get the pond temperature in a (so far) more reliable fashion.

This is by no means a NAS but it can select and serve temperature history file data. If I could find an appropriate sensor I think it could easily handle other fishy environmental things such as O2 and NH3  contents.

[Bob Williams]

Today I received the USB 3 external case and installed the Seagate 2TB spinner. It is technically the best Chinese piece of kit I have ever bought, I believe. Well made, goes together accurately and simply, works from the first press of the on switch. I have already  backed up my system and installed pics and music for streaming. My only caveat is that the on/off switch and cable connections are both at the front: I like to hide cables behind the monitor, but it’s not a problem. Very pleased with the case and the faster read/write speeds: –

http://tinyurl.com/tsmjped

I know some will say that I could have a smaller, SSD case and SSD disk, well I have a 2.5 case already, currently being used for a temporary purpose. I have plans for that when the temporary usage is done.

Ed: is the NH3 detection used for fishfarts? SORRY, couldn’t resist that; “Stop that you naughty piscatorial polluters!”🙄😆

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

Bob Williams wrote:

Ed: is the NH3 detection used for fishfarts? SORRY, couldn’t resist that; “Stop that you naughty piscatorial polluters!”🙄

In essence – yes. Ammonia is a by-product of fish eating food. In the presence of inadequate oxygen this gets converted to poisonous compounds unless remedial action is taken.

[Bob Williams]

Anaerobic compounds I believe Ed. Lots of these, such as Methane, Benzene, Selenate, Cresol, Benzoic acid. The atmosphere of gas giants like Jupiter is full of these, and others we may not even have imagined yet. Many more must have existed in great quantity when the Earth was young, until around 3.6 billion years ago, Stromatolites were built from bacteria and created Oxygen, the gas that we and other forms of life use to breathe and live. Oxygen was of course toxic to the first, anaerobic forms of life. There is speculation that uncontrolled pollution could lead to the reduction of oxygen in the atmosphere and a growth of anaerobic bacteria.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

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