DIY NAS Enclosure for The Cubieboard

The Cubieboard with a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, a SATA port and its low price ($49) is probably one the best available options if you want to make your own ARM based NAS. The hardware is easy to get, most of the software components (Linux, SAMBA/NFS server, Bittorrent client, etc…) are available, but there are no NAS enclosure available for the Cubieboard, so this part may be a little tricky. Cubieforums user Vustus has a pretty neat and cost- effective solution for an enclosure based on off-the-shelf parts.

Cubieboard NAS Enclosure and Power Supply
Cubieboard NAS Enclosure and Power Supply

If you want to try it yourself, you’ll need the following parts:

The total cost (including shipping) is about $52 without Cubieboard nor hard drive. I think you’ll have a hard time finding a cheaper 3.5″ dual HDD enclosure if you live in the US, but you may be able to find cheaper cables, and adapter.

You’ll also need an Ethernet cable, a soldering kit, a power drill, an RJ45 crimp tool, as well as some screws and plugs.

The hard drive is fitted in the adapter plate, and the Cubieboard attached on top as shown below.

Cubieboard_Hard_drive

The you’ll need to drill holes in the enclosure, as well as cut and solder a few cables to complete the design. You can check the pictures and a few words of explanation on imgur.com.

Vustus says he’s currently running Roman’s headless image (See Wheezy Debian images at http://linux-sunxi.org/More-images) with SAMBA and Transmission BT, but you could just add any software packages / solution  supporting the ARM architecture.

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23 Comments
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mongrol
mongrol
10 years ago

The Cubies sata goes through usb so you’ll be limited with usb2.0 speeds.

onebir
onebir
10 years ago

Does the Cubieboard still have a ‘low price’? You can get A10/A13 tablets for a similar price (shipped), and they have more components and cost quite a bit more to ship…

ewosk
ewosk
10 years ago

and how it works in reality/everyday use? How it performs streaming hd videos? handling multiple users connected? anybody tested? Author maybe? 10q

johnals
johnals
10 years ago

mongrol :
The Cubies sata goes through usb so you’ll be limited with usb2.0 speeds.

That is not correct.
The Cubieboard (well, the A10 SoC) has a SATA Controller.

Source:
1. Kernel boot message of my Cubieboard says: [ 1.110000] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 mmio [mem 0x01c18000-0x01c18fff] port 0x100 irq 56
2. Allwinner A10 SoC design specs at cubieboard.org (Download section).

Dobrica Pavlinušić
10 years ago

Cubieboard does NOT have SATA connected through USB, I did test with 80Gb Intel SSD and here are results:

root@debian:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 784 MB in 2.00 seconds = 392.08 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 460 MB in 3.00 seconds = 153.32 MB/sec

Having said all this, I should note that network was somewhat flaky while reading disk image from that SSD, so YMMV, but it’s definatly not USB speed.

johnals
johnals
10 years ago

cnxsoft :
@myfoolishgames
Will the Cubietruck support SATA port multipliers?

There are no detailed info yet for the Allwinner A20 SoC to figure out whether it can support SATA port multipliers.
If someone has a Cubieboard2, then can verify by looking at the dmesg messages.

DesertF0x
DesertF0x
10 years ago

Better take a NSA-310 oder NSA-320. It is easy to install Debian and it has Gigabit!

myfoolishgames
myfoolishgames
10 years ago

myfoolishgames :
I was looking for a solution for the upcoming cubietrack.
http://www.addonics.com/products/ad5sarpm-e.php
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132029
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111177R

Regarding port multiplier, I was looking at another model that from my limited knowledge should support any sata controller.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.

http://www.addonics.com/products/ad5hpmrxa-e.php
http://www.addonics.com/products/ad5hpmreu.php

JQPABC123
JQPABC123
10 years ago

ARM is a hot ticket thanks to mobile but it is not always the best or most cost effective solution. For only slightly more money ($120+shipping) and a lot less headache, you can get a compact, complete, real Intel Atom PC with Gigabit LAN and dual SATA ports that would probably be more reliable and efficient for NAS application.

Of course, all the thrill of cobbling together a rickety, unstable, slow ARM based solution will sadly be missing.

http://alturl.com/nr8qi

rm
rm
10 years ago

mongrol :
The Cubies sata goes through usb so you’ll be limited with usb2.0 speeds.

This is just plain not true. The A10 SoC has native SATA and reaches 100+ MB/sec speeds.

onebir
onebir
10 years ago

How about getting 2x the Cubie “simple case”, & installing one sheet of the second one to make a “double-decker” case? Then the HDD could be go into a caddy screwed onto the second deck.

(Assuming the simple case is slightly bigger than a 2.5″ HDD…)

nocturne2011
nocturne2011
10 years ago

@JQPABC123

“… slightly more money” …yes just a 100% more and a 5 times higher power consumption for the complete system you get an Atom PC with half the performance…

Craig
Craig
10 years ago

@mongrol

Incorrect.

Craig
Craig
10 years ago

@mongrol

No it doesn’t dipshit. Why don’t you do some cursory reading before you embarrass yourself again?

NAVNi
10 years ago

I’m currently trying to implement a NAS using a cubieboard.

http://navni-stuff.blogspot.be/2014/01/cubieboard-based-nas.html

krypalkora
krypalkora
10 years ago

Cubieboard 2 and SATA 1 to 5 Port SATA2 Multiplier adapter riser card and A20-cubieboard Lubuntu Desktop Releases. Olny 1 hdd in linux. The rest of the disk is not visible to the system.
Other operating system?

Tested.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-multi-SATA-1-to-5-Port-SATAII-SATA2-Multiplier-adapter-riser-card/715884490.html

Khadas VIM4 SBC