- System76 Meerkat is my workstation with pop-os, I have 2. a Beelink s13 that I have installed and configured fedora server headless with podman for a development lab, and for 3. My vision was a NAS Samba plus Jellyfin and Homeassistant device. NAS supports 2 ssd plugged directly into usb which host backup for Meerkat and s13.
For 3., I have tried unsuccessfully with a raspberry pi 5, not saying I have any skill whatsoever but I spent a significant amount of time and got so fucking close but it was not a sustainable system that I created in the end I moved on next to a GMK G3 plus which, out of the box, and immediately could not sustain connection to the ssd via usb, I methodically tested all the usb ports with both ssd devices and concluded that there was no fucking way this unit will sustain a connection to these usb ssd for any amount of time. So I am not using that device.
I have ordered and waiting to receive Beelink s12 and going to try that next for my 3. vision.
All that said, I am in the struggle and if anyone had kind words or advice, yes please.
Also, please shoot me straight: am I removed? Is this a recipe for failure? Is it unreasonable to run those services on s12? Is it foolish to think I can sustain two ssd via usb and backup via Samba with s12?
S13 and s12 are ethernet connected to router, Meerkat is wireless connected.
I genuinely appreciate any attention here, thank you for your time.
*Also wanted to add, earlier I got one of the refurbished servers, Lenovo I believe, off Amazon. It was advertised with 1 TB ssd. When it arrived, there was no ssd and the ribbon cable appeared damaged. Just adding that for the record here as well.
In that regard I will say that I ran the ssd successfully on raspberry pi with no issue whatsoever so i never considered it. The issue with GMK was immediate and affected both ssd the same way, I methodically tested all the ports one by one with both ssd and concluded the issue was with gmk and not the ssd. I tested ssd on separate device Meerkat to verify the drive and hub and cable, no issues found with the ssd, hub, or cable on separate device and with smartmon i even wiped the drives and partitions just to be sure, testing was thorough enough for me to conclude that I received a lemon.
But hey, maybe I am wrong and if I see the same thing on s12 I will need another option, but I would be more inclined to believe it is a USB power issue and not an issue with the ssd because that is what all the testing points to so I am wondering: am I wrong to think I can sustain two ssd via USB with s12?
Please any advice. Thank you.
USB ssds seem to have a lot of weird issues being used for a nas drive. Sometimes its a power management thing on the SSD itself, sometimes its something odd with the USB controller on the host. Occasionally the power supply of the sff pc doesnt have enough amps for all of the peripherals. Using an intermediary like a usb hub makes all of these issues worse since you add another device with its own potential conflicts.
Not to say its not possible to do, but USB drives and NAS’s rarely play nice together.
Noted, I definitely did not understand or appreciate that before but now I really know for sure, thank you.
Personally, I’d use the Pi 5 for your Plexbox and HA server. I have had success running both those on the PI 4 with boot from an SSD stick. If you’re unsure what OS, just use the Raspberry official Debian server image. Whatever you do, don’t use an SD card for your hard drive. It’s funny when people complain that the Pi sucks and they only use the SD card.
I am open to the pi because I got so fucking close with it, period. I flashed the pi 64 bit os lite to one of the two ssds, I had Samba running with backups from s13 and Meerkat it was beautiful! Homeasistant fucked my world up: I was trying to run in container, I tried both docker and podman. There was problems with the image pull, pi would time out and or the ssd would get corrupted. I crashed this system and rebuilt it so many times before I gave up. I do believe it could work but I thought I might have abetter chance with a mini PC. And BTW, I really like the s13 so I kept moving that way. I fucked up with the choice on GMK, I should have got another Beelink I thought because the Beelink iss noticeably nicer and the GMK looks more trashy and was a lemon to boot.
If I simply dropped HA or moved it to another device, pi did what I would need. But I did not want to and am too stupid to make it work with pi so far…
if I did it again, I would probably not flash the os to the same ssd that I want to use for backups, that was probably stupid move, and would probably be able to make it work I would probably need a powered hub for the ssds and boot media because of concerns there and it would probably cost the same as an s12 and since I really like the s13…
*also want to add that I am a rabid hobbyist and have a list of uses for pi 5 so it is NOT going away or in the trash, just saying