YOU’LL NEED THIS

A RASPBERRY PI

Fourth generation is best; plus you need a USB hard drive.

RASPBERRY PI OS LITE

Download from http://raspberrypi. org/software/operating-systems/.

ETCHER

Download from www.balena.io/etcher/.

LET’S BEGIN WITH THE BAD NEWS, before you get all excited: The Raspberry Pi 4 is not the best choice as a NAS host. What is more, the Pis that came before it should probably be avoided at all costs. This isn’t some elitist sentiment, it’s a hardware issue. The earliest Pis top out at USB 2.0, have a limited controller that leans heavily on CPU power, and give their USB ports and Ethernet connection a shared bus, severely limiting bandwidth. The Pi 4 is built in a more sensible way, but it still shares each of its USB ports over a single PCIe lane with 4Gb/s bandwidth. If speed is your concern, look elsewhere. However, if an ultra-budget NAS (with room to tinker on top) sounds good, you’re in the right place. It’s certainly a clever way to put an unused Raspberry Pi to good use, and OpenMediaVault makes file sharing far easier than it would be in raw unfettered Linux. If you’re lucky enough to have an old PC kicking around, this is even more applicable, particularly because you’ll be able to use SATA-connected drives to set up a RAID configuration, something that isn’t available here—just install it on top of Debian instead of Raspberry Pi OS.