Since we’ve started this How-to Build a Low-Budget Downloading Machine series, we have shown you how to gather the parts necessary to build your Pi, set up the Raspbian OS, and set up remote access to your Pi using SSH over your network. All of this has been great so far; now you have a fully-functioning, low-powered mini-computer that can be used for almost anything, and it won’t consume more than $15 in energy per year. Yes that’s right, a fully-functional computer that costs next to nothing to run for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Are you excited yet? You should be! Now that our Pi is booted, primed and ready, it’s time to christen our soon-to-be Usenet downloading machine with some much-needed storage.
What You Need
The hardware you need for your storage solution is based solely on what storage configuration you would like. You could have one standalone external USB hard drive to dump your favorite downloads onto, or you could set up a dual-USB drive backup to keep a copy of ALL of your download files. You could also set up two independent USB drives to increase your overall storage capacity if that is what is most important to you. At the end of the day, your storage configuration is ultimately a matter of personal preference. Using one USB drive, your downloading rig will ultimately use less power; however, you will miss out on the obvious multi-drive benefits.
Setting Up Storage for Raspberry Pi
When we got ready to piece together this how-to, we discovered our friends over at How-To Geek had already created an excellent guide called How to turn a Raspberry Pi into a Low Power Network Storage Service. In How-To Geek’s article, you’ll find instructions to set up either of the two storage configurations we discussed earlier, as well as instructions on how to set up Samba to enable access to your storage via your windows network on your other computers and devices.
What’s Next?
Stay tuned for our last installment of the How-to Build a Low-Budget Downloading Machine, in which we’ll be setting up SABnzbd. In this final chapter, we will take you through the installation of the SABnzbd package on Raspbian OS and provide a step-by-step guide for configuring access to UsenetServer.
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