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Raspberry Pi NAS | How to Use the Raspberry Pi as a NAS box?

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Raspberry Pi NAS

Raspberry Pi NAS | How to Use the Raspberry Pi as a NAS box?: Building the NAS on your Raspberry Pi is one of the smartest ways to create DIY NAS for safe and efficient file management. NAS (Network Attached Storage) Server is the network storage system to serve and share the files with another client computers in the local network area. It enables multiple users to access and share the same file storage. It can be used in different file sharing protocols to share the data through the network. The mainly used protocol is Server Message Block. Additional protocols are the (NFS) Network File System, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SCP (Secure Copy), SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) and many more. There are some Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions but that can be bought, setup and accessed within an hour. The main drawback of these devices is the cost, that can cost more than $1,000 depends on what you need from the connected storage. But building it through the Raspberry Pi doesn’t cost you that much and it is also very simple to make it.

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

Raspberry Pi is an excellent piece of kit, which is used by a lot of people, it offers the opportunity to purchase a ready-to-go micro PC that can do anything – within reason. One such use of the newest Raspberry Pi is to run the home or office-based NAS. Raspberry Pi NAS box is the popular Pi project. And it can be done easily with the help of OpenMediaVault, You can quickly and easily create the Raspberry Pi NAS box.

Related: How to Set up Raspberry Pi Weather Station Using the Sense HAT?

How to Use the Raspberry Pi as a NAS box? | aspberry Pi NAS

It is a very simple project. The first thing you need to get is OpenMediaVault, and install it on your Raspberry Pi, tweak some settings, and plug in the external storage devices. For this project, you need the Raspberry Pi, and the usual peripherals such as a keyboard, screen, mouse, microSD card, and a computer with the SD card reader. Naturally, you need the USB media storage devices, especially self-powered ones with a lot of storage space for all your stuff.

Step 1: Download the OpenMediaVault, You can download the Raspberry Pi version of the operating system here. You need the one named omv_rpi2_rpi3_3.0.63.img.gz, or something like that (the numbers towards the end of the filename may vary with future updates).

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

Step 2: Extract the disk image, Use any of your favourite programs to unzip the file – Here we used 7zip.

Step 3: Write the OpenMediaVault disk image to the microSD card, Here Mac’s disk utility will work, as will Windows’ Win32 Disk Imager. This is the same process that we have used with other operating systems, including the Raspbian.

Step 4: Connect everything and boot up the Raspberry Pi, Stick the nice new microSD card into the Raspberry Pi and connect the Pi to a local network with the Ethernet cable. You need to plug in the external storage devices, too, of course. Then plug in the Raspberry Pi’s power source. You can find that there is no real installation process, and the Pi will spring to life without any hassle.

Step 5: Now set up the OpenMediaVault, When you boot up the Raspberry Pi NAS, the OpenMediaVault will print your IP address:

To manage the system simply visit the openmediavault web control panel:
eth0: [IP address]

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

You can see your IP address instead of the part in brackets, of course. Note that down and then head back to the computer. Open up the browser on your computer and type in the Pi’s IP address. You can find yourself in the control panel for your new Raspberry Pi NAS. Log in with the credentials admin (username) and openmediavault (password), and then you can do some configuring!

Step 6: Mount your disks, on the left side menu, click on the File Systems (it will be under the Storage heading). You can see the USB storage devices in the Device column. Simply select one and hit the Mount, then apply. That’s it!

Related: How to Set up a Raspberry Pi AirPlay Receiver?

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

Step 7: Create shared folders, the entire thing of this process is to make your files available to multiple devices on your network. To do that, you need to create shared folders.

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

At the main navigation menu, click the Shared Folders. It will be under Access Rights Management. simply hit Add to get started, you will be able to name the folder, then choose the storage devices and mention the path for it. Click Save when you are done.

Step 8: Enable SMB/CFIS, Creating the shared folders was only half of this project. Now you have to enable SMB/CFIS so that the other computers on the network can reach your shared folders. This is simple, go back to the main menu, and click the SMB/CFIS and turn on the option labelled Enable. Then click Save and, after some time, Apply.

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

Here you can see two tabs to the SMB/CFIS menu. Now on the settings, head to the Share by clicking the labelled tab. Click Add and then, in the drop-down menu, select the shared folder you created in the last step. Then click save, then repeat this as necessary until all the shared folders are actually shared.

Step 9: Now you can add users, multiple users can be added to OpenMediaVault So that you can set different levels of permissions for each. To add the user, simply click the user under Access Rights Management on the main left-hand menu. Hit Add, give the user a name and a password. You can even add things like email address if you would like and remember to hit Apply.

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

Step 10: Access your files, we have covered everything you wish to do on the OpenMediaVault side of things. Now simply talk about the PC or Mac you are using to access these files. In both the cases, you will need to map the new shared drive from the computer. On PC you need to use the File Explorer. Just Click on This PC, then the Computer tab, then Map Network Drive. Now you need to choose the drive letter from the drop-down box next to Drive, you can use any letter to already in use. In the Folder field, you can type the path to the network drive. which will be \\RASPBERRYPI\[folder], where [folder] is the name of the shared folder. Now click the finish and log in with the credentials you have created in Step 9.

Related: How to set up a Web Server on the Raspberry Pi?

Raspberry Pi NAS
Raspberry Pi NAS

On Mac, use the finder. Type Command + K to get the windows labelled Connect to Server. Type smb://raspberrypi into the Server Address field, you can use the IP address instead of “raspberrypi”). Then click the Connect, choose the volumes you wish and then click OK.

That’s all! Your NAS is now fully up and running. This guide doesn’t cover everything you can do with the OpenMediaVault. To get most out of the program, It is recommended to check the OpenMediaVault wiki.

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