It is all about sales I understand, re-using things doesn't pay development. But NAS software is totally open-source, I personally have had my own 'NAS' before any Pi existed and also before one could buy commercial NAS boxes. So if SW is already open for decades, why you think I would lock myself to a 40pin header and a proprietary flatcable with a 10-year old formfactor PCB when I need a SATA connector or a M.2 M-key connector. I do not need wayland developments nor libcamera nor 16k pages. I want portable software, so I don't get into software vendor lock-in, no special kernels or any 'phone-home modules' or so for a NAS. I learned my lessons since more than decade when connecting storage via USB. The Pi4 is the 'cherry on the pi' as we say it or in good English 'icing on the cake'. It works now after 30 Euros of USB related stuff. Never again.The M.2 HAT for Pi 5 is about $15.
Or £50ish for a 512GB SSD as well. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/rasp ... 0768616827
Not really bank breaking stuff, and works out of the box.
My only HAT is a TV-HAT; Since I saw it has Sony chip and for transition from DVB-T to DVB-T2 I thought that was a good thing as Pis were popular or the only hobby ARMs with SPI DVB driver (I thought). Although DVB-T2 works via TVH server, there is no nice out-of-the-box options anymore to transport the raw TS via USB-IP or similar I did before with USB based solutions. Also extra soldering work is needed for power supply (I use GPIO 4 6 usually). Also because no USB, no virtualization options. So my conclusion I picked the wrong HW. The 40 pins are nice for connecting a wire here and there, but soon you will notice that it drags you into stack of HATs or adaptors and so on. Not to mentions overlays often needed. So also for that TV-HAT, never again.
W.r.t. '£50ish for a 512GB SSD': I assume they are generic, that is why I mentioned it. Maybe they cause trouble in some random PC or SBC, I don't know. Also for those products, second hand Samsungs of 256GB I bought for 10 euros. They still have many TBW left. A reason is I want to make use of re-use options instead of buying new future e-waste.
Statistics: Posted by redvli — Wed Jul 02, 2025 12:14 pm