Initial Task and Failed Attempt

In March 2024, one of the inexpensive mini PCs from AliExpress was purchased for the project. The processor is an Intel N100.

The original goal was to connect an external graphics card via a USB-C docking station and test gaming scenarios. The following was discovered:

• the computer has a single USB-C port, which is used only for power input;
• a monitor capable of receiving power over USB did not display an image through this cable;
• DisplayPort over USB in combination with the docking station did not work;
• the budget model lacked a Thunderbolt controller;
• the USB-C port turned out to be only a power connector without data transmission.

Connecting an external graphics card became impossible. However, the same mini PC was later used as the basis for a file storage server.

Problems That Delayed the Project

In October, the hard drive containing the source materials, including the latest unedited recordings, failed. Only two videos were released over the course of the month. Some of the files were recovered from backups, and the rest had to be re-filmed.

This incident is what led to returning to the project and finishing it.

Power Supply Scheme

The main difficulty of the project was not the enclosure but organizing the power supply. The power scheme was redesigned three times.

Load Calculation

• Six drives at 5 V require a total of about 6 A.
• The file storage runs around the clock, so a power reserve is required. A 5 V, 10 A source was selected for the calculation.
• The standard mini-computer adapter is rated for 12 V and 3 A.

Rejected Options

• Installing the standard adapter inside the enclosure. It would have required a separate space for its board.
• Two built-in power supplies for the drives. This option was rejected. Bringing 220 V mains input inside a compact enclosure together with low-voltage electronics was considered unsafe. A failure of one of the units could have destroyed the files, all six drives, and the mini-computer.

Final Scheme

All devices are powered by a single cable from the adapter. The step-down converters have been ordered but had not been received at the time of writing. Rebuilding the enclosure has been postponed until their dimensions are known.

Temporary Configuration

• Screws of the right size for mounting the drives were not available. They were ordered, and in the meantime the existing ones were used.
• The temporary power source is an adapter with enough capacity for the entire system.
• The enclosure includes a 12 V fan. It was connected to the 5 V line, so it rotates slowly and almost silently. This level of air circulation is sufficient to cool the drives.
• With the open design and no fan, the drive temperature does not exceed 40 °C. The author considers this value to be within the normal operating range.

Connecting Drives

The built-in USB ports do not provide enough current to power even four SATA drives. When powered by a separate 5 V source, the system starts up and runs stably.

To connect six SATA drives, an adapter was used that connects through an M.2 slot to PCI Express lanes and provides six SATA ports.

Network Configuration

Network Speed

The mini computer's built-in network adapter operates at 1 Gbit/s. For file storage, this is not enough. USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports provide transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s.

5 Gbit/s network adapters cost about the same as 2.5 Gbit/s adapters. For comparison:

The peak throughput of the adapter is slightly higher than the speed of the fastest drive in the system. This corresponds to the chosen balance between the network and the storage drives.

Two 5 Gbit/s adapters were purchased:

• the first is connected to the file storage;
• the second is connected to the laptop on which video editing is performed, via a USB hub.

Network Bridge

• The mini computer's built-in gigabit port receives internet access from the router.
• Both network interfaces of the file storage are combined into a network bridge (bridge).
• The router assigns IP addresses to both the file storage and the device with the 5 Gbit/s adapter.

All devices are on the same home network. The laptop accesses the drives at a theoretical speed of 5 Gbit/s.

Speed Measurement

The iPerf utility was used to measure the actual throughput.

• Result: 3.4 Gbit/s, which corresponds to approximately 425 MB/s during copying.
• The author rates the result as good, considering that the mini computer's ports are USB 3.2 Gen 1.
• The result is lower than the speed of the drives, but the system's budget is limited.

Copy Test

A test file of 11 GB was copied without acceleration.

• Estimate from the copy interface: less than a minute.
• According to the timeline of the video editing software, the file was copied in 30 seconds.

Video materials are edited directly from the file storage, without local copying.

Additional Devices

SATA Drive Tester

The device connects a SATA drive to a computer and displays S.M.A.R.T. data. A computer is not required for operation: power from an external battery is sufficient.

Displayed parameters:

• capacity;
• total operating time;
• number of power-on cycles;
• remaining life in percent;
• temperature;
• voltage.

To verify that the data was current, the drive was disconnected and reconnected. The power-on counter updated from 202 to 203. The device works with regular hard disk drives, not only with SSDs.

Enterprise U.2 Storage via USB Adapter

The U.2 drive looks externally similar to SATA, but it belongs to the server-oriented NVMe standard. An adapter with a power supply and a USB cable allows such a drive to be connected to a computer via USB.

• The seller claims speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s over USB.
• Drive performance through the adapter is limited. Transfer speeds with a Windows computer and a MacBook turned out to be roughly the same.
• A test on a 10 Gbit/s port showed a speed of about 10 Gbit/s; however, read speed was lower than expected.

The drive stores video footage from previous years and a large volume of source material. There are plans to move it to file storage.

TrueNAS Operating System

TrueNAS is an operating system for servers and network-attached storage devices. It is installed from a bootable USB flash drive, after which the system provides a web interface for managing disks and network access.

Dashboard Section

Allows you to select the system parameters displayed on the home page and change their layout.

Storage Section

• Disks: a list of connected drives with their names (sda, sdb, etc.), serial numbers, capacity, and the pool to which each disk belongs.
• Pools: the arrays that have been created.

Examples of configurations on the author's system:

• 4 TB pool consisting of a single disk with no redundancy.
• Mirror pool named "мир". The name is derived from the first three letters of the English word mirror. It stores the source files. Data is written to two disks simultaneously. If one disk fails, the system sends a notification by email. After the faulty disk is replaced, the array rebuilds automatically.

Two disks were left unpartitioned.

Creating a Pool

1. Specify the pool name.
2. Select the pool type. The main options are stripe and mirror.
   • Stripe is similar to RAID 0. Data is distributed across several disks to increase speed, with no redundancy.
   • Mirror is similar to RAID 1. Data is written to two disks simultaneously for reliability.
3. The Log section allows you to attach an additional SSD to speed up synchronous writes. The array structure does not change.
4. The Spare section allows you to assign a spare disk. It is automatically activated if one of the main disks fails.

The Log and Spare features are optional.

In the example, a single pool was created from two disks in a mirror configuration. After creation, TrueNAS formats the disks with the ZFS file system.

ZFS File System

ZFS (Zettabyte File System) is designed for reliable storage. It:

• monitors data integrity;
• automatically corrects errors;
• supports snapshots;
• supports replication;
• compresses data in real time.

Datasets and Sharing

After a pool is created, datasets are created within it. A dataset is a logical partition inside a pool, similar to a folder. For each dataset, you can configure:

• its own settings;
• access permissions;
• quotas;
• compression parameters;
• backup parameters.

Datasets are managed independently of one another.

Sharing is configured in the Shares section:

• SMB: for Windows;
• NFS: for Linux.

Once configured, the dataset appears on the network as a regular network folder.

Other Sections

• Data Protection: automatic snapshots. Configuration was not covered in this description.
• Network: creating a network bridge. Two adapters are selected and combined into a bridge.
• Credentials: creating users and passwords for accessing the storage.
• Containers (experimental section): an analog of Docker. Allows running application containers directly on the storage without installing an additional system.
• Virtual Machines: running and installing full virtual machines. The author uses Home Assistant, Debian, and OpenVPN. A USB port can be passed through to a virtual machine. This is how the Zigbee adapter is connected to Home Assistant.
• Apps: installing additional applications. The author installed a utility for booting computers over the network using PXE technology.

Summary

After the disk failed, the author planned to re-shoot the video but spent several days studying TrueNAS. The system was assessed as functional and suitable for home storage with data redundancy. The author recommends studying it independently.