On 2/27/20 9:53 PM, Dale wrote:
james wrote:
5G + gentoo + embedded toys, is going to be FUN FUN FUN.
Then I'll be off to other states, via a hacked out Redneck
camper...... and too many microProcessors....
Thanks Rich, your insights and comments are always most welcome.
James
Off topic a bit but a question.� Would one of these Rasp-Pi-4 thingys
make a NAS hard drive server?
Sure, but, there may be a better solution, something all ready out there
and it really depends on refining your needs, current and in the future.
So lets refine your specifications (centric to your needs + growth) and
figure out what and how much you need. Then we can survey the
embedded-thingies, that meet your specs, with a bit of room for growth, OK?
I have a Cooler Master HAF-932 case
Wow, that's big. What the number and capacity (TB) of
your existing hard-drives?
How much more storage do you want? Replacing drives with larger
capacity, might be all you need to do?
but
even it is running out of hard drive space.� I'm thinking about building
a NAS box, taking sheet metal and bending it until it looks like a box.
OK, so we first spec out options, then let you decide. Then you can
'bargain shop' for appropriate housing/rack/open chassis, etc.
Thing is, it needs a small puter to take data from the drives to the
network and vice-versa.
embedded are not only small, they can have extended temperature ranges
of tolerance, use drastically less power and many other features. If
it's purposed hardware, that is only a few things todo, then yes
embedded uP (abbrev for microProcessor) are the way to go. Running off
of 12VDC, means an old car battery and a connection to your solar panels
(assuming you have those) and it's zero on your electric bill. There is
usually a vast array of tax and other incentives, particularly with
solar in Ag businesses.
I've never even seen one of those things, except on my monitor, so I
have no idea what all they are capable of.
Dale, you are pretty strong with Gentoo Linux, so putting a stripped,
purposed, minimized gentoo derivative stack, with far less ebuilds, to
work for your operations, is going to be quite fun. On a farm or ranch,
there are a myriad of things you can do with embedded boards and
gentoo-stripped. You can replace many of those expensive (vendor)
systems with embedded boards +sensors +controls codes and lots of wires
to do most anything. Let's focus on your NAS for now.
I figure a lot of SATA connectors and a ethernet connection
plus enough CPU power and memory to get the job done.
SATA, was great years ago. Still it makes sense to use, if you already
have them. Storage going forward is the process of faster and cheaper
and leaving SATA behind, like ide. Still useful, but a power hog. So
we'll start out with interfacing your existing SATA drives to the
embedded board, and look/decide on options for newer Solid State Data
storage options.
� https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB
You might not even need many sata ports. usb3 and the upcoming usb4 have
tons of bandwidth (date/time). Mechanical Hard drives are on the way
out. Too expensive and failure prone. SSd and other types of storage,
might be right for you, or a mixture. USB stick memory
can be huge, very low power draw and very inexpensive.
A hybrid of several types of memory storage may be useful to experiment
with. You may want to categorize your long term storage: some accessed
often, others maybe once a year?
For data storage, long term important stuff, you should employ RAID
(1-10). We can get into that later, duplication of important data, via
backups or extra storage is a good idea too. Backups are an old
technology, but may help, but backups do can get old too and fragmented.
For now, lets not worry so much about long term bit integrity, but focus
on your next FUN gentoo rig. I'm hoping other join in to so you have
more than my prospective on your solution.
If those things are capable of doing that fairly
easily.� After all, I'm me.� :/
OK, so let's survey some system, you can just purchase
with gentoo preinstalled, or a very easy pathway to embedded gentoo.
Let's look at a few, have some of the other guys jump in, and find you a
solution, to start with. Most will be expandable, and you can figure out
the casing, mounting, power and such.
At this stage, it mostly a research effort and then deciding your
features/price. If you do not have massive bandwitdh requirements, I'm
sure we can find you
a very cost effective, DC powered solution.
Just so you know, I use that fancy $300 OPtima 12vdc charger, and Optima
batteries. the charger reconditions most batteries, if they are not
beyond saving, even cheap lead-acid batteries. Every Farmer should have
one, imho. The Digital 1200 is just awesome.
https://www.optimabatteries.com/en-us/battery-charger
If you like, you can read up on blue, red and yellow top versions and
their intended duty-cycle.
Take some time and look at these gentoo embedded boards, before we
diverge to other offerings:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Embedded_systems/ARM_hardware_list
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
Just curious.
Dale
:-)� :-)
Dale, embedded gentoo is about the most fun thing you'll ever do. A
hardware guy like yourself, that is already an accomplish part of the
great gentoo community, dude,
your going to have a lot of fun, and save money on that farm. So let's
get started!
Post back and I, or others, will try to answer your questions. Be
specific about what you do currently and where you want to end up.
Just so you know, imho, (2) of the finest humans and accomplished Gentoo
devs are listed in gentoo-embedded.
Actually, all the members are just totally awesome humans, so you, my
friend, are in for the ride of a lifetime!
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Embedded
https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-rm
More boards to look at (the features).
https://www.embeddedarm.com/products/category/single-board-computers
https://freaklabs.org/chibiarduino/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gentoo/comments/7oxoln/question_about_gentoo_on_raspberry_pi/
