instructables

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS

by tobychui

Why a Raspberry Pi NAS

Well, I have been searching for a beautiful yet space In this project, I will not use any existing parts that is
saving Raspberry Pi NAS from the internet and I specially design for Raspberry Pi NAS. Instead, I will
found nothing. I did find some NAS design with a be using some common parts you can easily found
Raspberry Pi get glued to a wooden based but that is on Amazon or ebay. So, lets get started!
not what I want. I want a real NAS. Those looks like
professional and durable that can be used to store my By the way, that is my initial design sketch up there.
massive amount of movie collections. So I decided to
build myself a NAS from the ground up. Yes, you
heard that. FROM THE GROUND UP.

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 1

Step 1: 3D Modeling and Printing
After I have designed my NAS case in Autodesk
Inventor, I test fit them to see if every joint is correctly
designed.
Let me explains how the parts works. This case is
divided into three parts. The left section is for the
power management board and Raspberry Pi 3B+.
You can use a Pi 3/ 2B+ as well as their footprint is
A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 2
the same. But you would want to use the Pi3B+ as it
is faster. I will explain the detail later.
The right section of the case is design to hold two
5inch hard disk how swap mount (See picture 4). And
the extra space at the back is for a 7 cm fan, a DC
jack and the cabling.
Step 2: 3D Models Download (Case)

The 3D models can be downloaded here. License under:

Attribution-ShareAlike

CC BY-SA

Download
http://www.instructables.com/ORIG/F8L/JRDG/JK4UIXK6/F8LJRDGJK4UIXK6.stl
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http://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FBQ/NB8B/JK4UIXK7/FBQNB8BJK4UIXK7.stl
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http://www.instructables.com/ORIG/F5L/KPXZ/JK4UIXK8/F5LKPXZJK4UIXK8.stl
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http://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FKP/BIJP/JK4UIXK9/FKPBIJPJK4UIXK9.stl
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http://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FUY/OFVR/JK4UIXKA/FUYOFVRJK4UIXKA.stl
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Step 3: Printing and Assembling

After the prints has finished, we can start building the case.

The case is made up of three parts as mentioned before, you can attach them together with some M3x5 screws
and M3x10 (for the top and bottom screw holes). Afterward, inserting the button caps into the holes and you will be
ready for the electronic parts.

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 3

Step 4: Buttons and Signal LEDs

Actually the buttons and LEDs are some simple
circuit that attach the signal from the Pi's GPIO to the
front panel. There is nothing much special here
except the button is a bit tricky. I would recommend
you to do some test print before fitting the PCB inside
the case with glues. That can make sure the quality of
the buttons are good and clickable. In my design, as
the RED LED require 5V, so I added a resistor on it
and planned to directly connect the LED VCC pin to
the power management board's 5V output. You can
use the Raspberry Pi's 3.3V GPIO pin as well without
the need for the extra resistor.

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 4

Step 5: Test Fitting
After receiving the hot plug bay from ebay, I placed
two 2mm acrylic plate on the bottom and top of the
right case. This is used to strengthen the support for
the two HDD bay as HDD are kind of heavy after
inserting into the bay.
Afterward, I used an old USB hard disk drive which,
usually contain some kind of SATA to USB converter
circuit board. For the one I bought, it come with a pre-
soildered 12V input port that can support 12V power
input for a 3.5 inch HDD. I attached them to the end
A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 5
of the two HDD hot plug bay and attached two cable
to the end of it. One of the cable is a 2.1mm DC jack
for the 12V input and the other one is a micro USB
male cable for data and 5V. Both of them are special
ordered so they bend in a direction towards the
bottom and preserve space.
The finished product should look something like the
picture 5.
Step 6: Tape and Glue
Now, we need to tape and glue the HDD hot plug bay
into the case. First, I would recommend sticking a
double sided tape on the metal bracket of the bay.
After the bay is inserted and secured, put some
superglue on the contact between the Acrylic plate
and the metal bracket. But REMEMBER TO
REMOVE THE PAPER ON THE ACRYLIC PLATE.
I have forgotten to do so for the first time and I have a
A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 6
bad time moving everything out and do the same
process again.
After finishing this process, you would not see two
slot stick out of the right case and you can open then
and close them via the handle build onto the hot plug
bay.
Step 7: Test Fit

Now, stick your hard disk into the bay, and it should fit perfectly. (If not, you should ask for a refund from your
seller of the hot plug bay xD)

You might notice that there are two rounded slot at the top back section of the right case. Those are for the USB
cables. You can now stick the cables out and make it looks more tidy before start working on the electronics.

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 7

Step 8: Power Management Board

Here comes the power management board.
In the middle is a Tinduino. It is a self developed
Arduino for low cost deploy and development from
our Lab. Of course you can use an Arduino UNO for
this and control the relay on off when there is a button voltage from 12V to 5V for the Pi and the Arduino.
press.
There are plenty of tutorials online which teach you
how to make a board like this, for example:
It is basically a latch switch so you can do it in
whatever style you want.
On the right is a buck converter. It steps down the
And lastly, the bottom 3 port, from left to right is 12V
power in, 12V power out for HDD1, 12V power out for
HDD2

https://www.instructables.com/id/Toggle-Switch-Wit...

Step 9: Fixing Everything Together

Now, attach the power management board with the raspberry pi as shown in the picture above.

Plugin the 12V power input and everything should lights up (If not, maybe you can short the button and activate the
Arduino Relay Toggle System)

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 8

Step 10: Close the Case and You Are Done!

Now, screw in all the screws, plug in the power cable
and you are ready to go?
Not yet. We still need the software. But here is what
the finishing hardware looks like.
As the software is still in development, I would
recommend installing some open source OS / NAS
system like the FreeNAS or open media vault. But I
won't do that as I have planned to build my NAS from
the ground up.
So what would I do next? Write my own NAS
operating system!

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 9

Step 11: Install OS and Start Creating Your Own NAS Interface

Install the Raspbian Lite from the Raspberry pi website.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

and install it on your SD card. I think there are plenty of tutorial online so I don't duplicate those parts in this
instructable.

Step 12: Move On? ArOZ Online System!

You might remember my post two years ago which is Now, I have completely rewritten it into a brand new,
a Raspberry Pi media center system called DSM like Web UI called the ArOZ Online (Beta)

ArOZ Online (Alpha) This system will works on both Window Host and
Linux Host (of course Rasbian as well).
https://www.instructables.com/id/Simplest-Media-
Ce...

A Raspberry Pi NAS That Really Look Like a NAS: Page 10

Step 13: Comming Soon!

Well, at least for now the system I wrote detects the
1TB drive I have inserted into the NAS.
So what next? The software still needs years of
developments in order for it to run smoothly.
Currently, the max speed of transfer over 5G WiFi to
HDD is around 100Mbps. Which is kind of OK for the
fact that it is just a tiny little computer that is handing
all your request. And it can reach around 93Mbps
while transferring with Samba (Window SMB /
Network Disk). This might be the advantage of using
the Pi 3B+.
Please look forward to the update instructable to this
project next year :))

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