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I would like to use my Raspberry Pi as a file server (NAS/SMB).

Will I be able to attach a SATA/RAID controller?

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You'd be better off mounting a network drive. – Andrew Larsson Jun 18 '12 at 17:26

3 Answers

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You can build a NAS using...

  1. USB Hub
  2. Sata <> USB

  3. SATA Replicator / SATA Hardware Port Multiplier

    • This is how you can chain the multipliers to RAID, RAID'ed RAID's. You can go 4 multipliers deep and choose from a few raid options. At the Start of the Chain where the blue arrow is your combined terabytes of storage, redundant in the way you configured it to be.

    enter image description here

    • This is the standard usage where you can plug 5 hard drives and RAID them in a certain way then connect that as a physical drive in 1 SATA port or USB SATA Interface.

enter image description here

You just have to connect the Blue arrow to a SATA to USB converter. As long as you run at USB 2 speeds through out you can make quite a mean beefy NAS drive using a Pi.

To power the unit there is a standard plug (good old 1.44" Floppy Drive Connector) It is used in all PC's power supplies for accessories now a days. In this picture is a MOLEX converter. It is the smaller connector. The voltages are:

  • YELLOW - 12V
  • RED - 5V

You need to check how many amps it needs. But if you going to power 5X3.5" Hard drives then a 250Watt power supply will be the best option for powering everything, even the Raspberry form the 5V line!

enter image description here

Good luck :)

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I'm interested in this design, but I'm not up on current HD technology - what are those raid controllers? Are they standard PCI sata host adaptors? How are they powered? – Stevo Feb 11 at 20:43
@Stevo Hi- I updated the answer. The actual device might not need much power. But the hard drives will need a good old power supply. So you can just use that to power everything. 250-350 watt PSU are quite cheap. PS - Thanks for following me on twitter. – ppumkin Feb 11 at 23:22
up vote 6 down vote

Since the chip does not have SATA support. Your only option is to connect a SATA HD enclosure through the USB port.

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Considering the cost of those enclosures vs. the cost of the RasPi, it is probably not worth it. – finnw Jun 16 '12 at 12:54
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I was wondering whether this could be done via another chip and SPI/I2C/UART communication, but I couldn't find a suitable chip. – Alex Chamberlain Jun 16 '12 at 14:15
Re: cost of enclosures, I am using a 'dock', which is a stand for an internal hard drive. The 'naked' internal drive than goes into a rubber sleeve. Total cost was $35, plus the drive. – cmc Nov 26 '12 at 3:31
up vote 0 down vote

To build a custom SATA controller for the GPIO pins would not be a simple job, but may happen, one day. Then the Pi could be used as a NAS.

A NAS device would also be a great solution as the Network port is faster than USB.

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That's not what the GPIO was designed for - it is designed for a for very low frequency, non-realtime stuff (in general). – Alex Chamberlain Oct 10 '12 at 17:10
You may find some hacking with GPIO and SATA here johandraaisma.nl/raspberryproject – Igor Dec 20 '12 at 1:01
Although... on the Raspberry Pi, the network port is kind of a subdevice through the usb system so its not necessarily faster. – Eshwar Jan 19 at 20:18

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