Building a Fast Pi File Server

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I just did a blog on booting a Pi 4 Compute Module from an NVME drive.  I’ll provide a Build Of Materials (BOM) for duplicating this project.  Here are the primary components:

Compute Module 4 Build of Materials

ComponentCost Description
CM4008000$75CM4 Lite 8GB No Wifi, No Bluetooth
NVME PCIe Adapter$11NVME Adapter
Samsung EVO 970 Plus 2TB$203NVME Drive
CM4 IO Carrier Board$35Carrier Board for CM4
SD Card$9SD Card (optional). Not required if your CM4 has eMMC.
Power Brick$9Power Brick. Just picked the first one I saw on Amazon. Any 12v , 2 amp or more will do. Get a 5.5mm connector.

So for just over $300 you can have an amazing file server.  Also if you back off the 2TB Samsung EVO970 to a 1TB drive you can save $100 roughly.  You can buy a cheaper Compute Module as well IF YOU CAN FIND ONE. A 2GB one is fine for serving files. For around $200, or a bit less you can have a solid, and adequately fast file server.
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Booting a Raspberry Pi CM4 From an NVME

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This is another one of those things………..All the information is out there.  Several good sources have blogged about it, but NO ONE has put it in a Dummies Guide for the rest of us to follow.

NVME support and NVME booting is now built in to Raspberry Pi OS.  If you have a Compute Module Lite you can use the SD Card Copier program to copy your SD card to your NVME drive and boot to the NVME by removing the SD card, however if you have a Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module with eMMC you have to change the Boot Order according to the docs. 

NOTE:  THIS IS SPECIFIC TO THE COMPUTE MODULE 4.  THERE IS AN EASIER WAY TO CHANGE THE BOOT ORDER WITH A REGULAR RASPBERRY PI IN PI OS.  DON’T GET THE METHODS CONFUSED.

It’s not hard to do this.  And even if you use an SD card it might shave a little time off the boot to not have it looking for other boot sources first.  I recommend doing the following steps anyway so the NVME drive is first in the boot order.

First and foremost I will assume you have a booting Raspberry Pi CM4:

  • Raspberry Pi CM4 either with eMMC booting or via SD Card. (This example will be from SD) I have an 8GB with no WiFi or Bluetooth.
  • NVME PCIe Adapter – This one works fine.
  • SSD NVME – Bang for the buck I recommend the Samsung EVO 970 Plus I’ll be using the 2TB version of this card.
  • A micro USB to USB cable.
  • Power supply of 12 volts and probably a minimum of 2 amps.  I am using an old router brick that is 12v. 1.5 amps with no issues so far.  I do recommend around 20 watts of power for the board, adapter board, and SSD.

Once booted up normally with the adapter and nvme drive connected let’s check to see if it is recognized with these two commands:

lspci
lsblk

lspci and lsblk results (click pic to enlarge)

You can see the nvme drive is detected.  Good!

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Is It Time To Abandon Raspberry Pi?

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The Raspberry Pi is a single board computer that came out in 2012 and cost $35.  The intent was to teach computer science and coding to school age children.  The program and the Pi itself  is (or was) a raging success.  Hobbyists flocked to the low cost board that ran Linux and created myriads of projects that were fun, useful and educational.   I’ve been raving on them since 2012.

I’m ready to stop raving.

Why?  Because you can’t get them anymore.  To exacerbate things even more the CEO of Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd. came out on April 4th on their website and said that current production was going to businesses that have their livelihood dependent upon Raspberry Pi.

I’m sure a more reasonable translation is “these are our biggest money producing customers and phooey on the individual consumer”.  That is of course my quote.

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Trek (Bontrager) BLENDR system – Piece Of Fucking Shit

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Bought a new Trek bike and I’m one of those weirdos with a busy cockpit.  Lights, Cameras, Computers (shoulda said “Action”, I know), coffee holder.  I’m definitely predisposed to an Urban Commuter style of riding.

But the new bike is a fancy Carbon bike (FX Sport Carbon 4) and I decided to clean things up a bit.

Trek BLENDR

So basically the BLENDR system is a clip that sits between the useless space in the handlebar stem which allows you to mount a couple of items.

Cool.  I had to try it.

I have an Elite Stem so I made sure to order the right stuff for it.  They have a compatibility chart.

So I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mount one thing or two things so I bought both a Mono base and a Duo base.

IT’S A PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT.

First of all you can’t find them anywhere.  That implies 2 things.   It’s either really popular or its a piece of fucking shit.

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Bicycles, Tech, and Wokeness

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Make no mistake.  I fancy this as a Tech Blog.  Bicycles are surprisingly high tech, especially these days.  Heck, even when I was a kid the owner of the Schwinn bike shop wore a LAB COAT. That was a statement.  It meant a PROFESSIONAL was there in support of your bicycle purchase.

I’m turning 60 this year and one thing has almost never changed in my life.  Put me on a bicycle and I get positively HAPPY.  I love riding a bicycle.  Rain, no problem.  Wind, no problem.  Okay, I lied about the wind one.

I go through periods when I want to read, dream, and think about all things BICYCLE.  I just bought a new bike and I’m in that phase again.   Got the bike, got some lights, got some pedals and shoes.   And it is about the reading and research for me as it is about the stuff.  I want TECH stuff.  I want to read reviews from users.  I want to saturate myself in bicycle culture.

That is until I picked up a Magazine…………
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Trek FX Sport 4 Carbon Review (2021)

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Trek FX Sport 4 Carbon

I recently was in the big city of Charlotte NC and swung by a local cycle shop and to my utter shock and amazement they had an FX Sport 4 Carbon in stock.  This bike shop also asked if I were a veteran and gave me a 10% discount off retail price as well.

Ever since the pandemic hit one of the first things to disappear from the earth, after toilet paper, were bicycles.  IF, and I mean IF you could find a bike it wasn’t one of the higher end bikes.

Much like a lot of other people in the world I decided to whip myself into shape after being allowed to telework which gave me a solid two extra hours in the morning to exercise.  And what I most wanted was a Carbon Trek FX Sport 4, 5, or 6.  They have been unobtanium, at least in my parts, for over 2 years now.

I decided to buy the bike despite the fact that I have an FX2 and a Verve 3.  Here are my thoughts on the bike after dabbling with it for a few days.

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Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Boards – Where Are They?

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Pi Compute Module 4

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module is an interesting concept mostly designed for embedded solutions.

A regular Raspberry Pi gives you an HDMI slot, a camera slot, GPIO Pins, USB, audio, etc. but a CM4 with the proper board can give you a PCIe slot, onboard SATA, or onboard NVME M.2

But where are those boards?

I’m looking for a board that will do NVME M.2 natively for a 3.15″ SSD.  I simply can’t find one.

You can take the official Raspberry Pi IO Board and add a PCIe adapter to achieve this but it is kind of a kluge the way it sits in the slot and to date I’ve seen no specific cases that would hold the board securely.

Plus if you give up that PCIe lane to the adapter you can’t use it for other cool things.

What’s a geek to do?

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It’s That Time Of Year Again – Egg Printing

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This is just a cut and paste from my old blog which I hope to make go poof one of these days.  Just moving the content here for posterity.  The content might need to be refreshed a bit but, you know, I’m a busy guy.

 

Printing on Eggs and Shit.

So I’ve got a couple 3D printers and a vinyl sign machine and I’m always looking at related forums and reading the industry magazines. One day on Thingverse.com I stumble across the Sphere-O-Bot which shows a 3D printed frame with a couple of NEMA 17 motors and an arduino. And I think “I have to make that”. Forget that I have absolutely no reason to print on eggs or ping-pong balls but just as a man climbs Everest because it is there so it is with me.

There is a kit from a place called J-Robots or you can source the parts yourself. The software is open source. The thing is that an Arduino Leanardo, a Brainboard, and two stepper motors and drivers will set you back over $60 maybe more with shipping. Then you need the hardware and the other related stuff. Might as well get the kit.

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Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 NAS With SATA Card

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I got the inspiration to build up this Raspberry Pi NAS with a Compute Module and SATA adapter from Jeff Geerling.  His blog page is here (linked with permission).  If you like Raspberry Pi even a little bit this guy pushes the Pi to the extreme.  His computer, networking, and Linux skills are exceptional and his delivery is easy to understand.  If you visit his blog click the YouTube icon on the right side of the page and visit his channel.  

Decided to turn my Pi Compute Module 4 into Network Attached Storage (NAS).  A real NAS.  While a Raspberry Pi NAS won’t light the networking world on fire it is more than adequate to serve up files.  I want to put this NAS out in my Shed for two reasons.

  • Redundant backup in case the house burns down
  • Use Squeezelite client to stream audio to my shed stereo, a circa 1980’s Technics Receiver.

I have a mini-ITX case and guts to put a “real” server out there but my shed is a woodworking shop and push come to shove I’d rather gum up the fan and overheat  $100 worth of Pi and Compute Module IO board than to blast a $450 server motherboard.  Besides lots of sawdust it gets wicked hot and wicked cold in the shed too. This computer is going to get dirty and this is a choice of economics as much as anything.

Making a Pi NAS is easy but it also ends up being a spaghetti mess and unless you design and 3D print a custom case the Compute Module just isn’t organically designed to fit any standard case out there.  We gotta get creative.

My cheap case is a Mini ITX case.  How I dealt with the installation was to keep the 500 watt power supply intact and to 3D print a case for the Compute Module IO board.  Then I just double side taped that to the inside of the enclosure.  Here’s a quick video of the build with details to follow.

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