Hi everyone! Recently, I experimented with turning my BPI-M5 into a home NAS. This is a well-established use case on the Raspberry Pi, but since the Pi relies solely on an SD card and the BPI-M5 comes with eMMC storage, I decided to give it a try on the BPI-M5.
To be honest, I ran into quite a few issues during the OS installation process. Initially, I planned to use a desktop environment for some light office work, so I flashed the latest version of Armbian. However, after multiple attempts and running into numerous problems, I ultimately gave up on Armbian.
Fortunately, flashing Ubuntu Server worked on the first try!
I chose CasaOS as the management layer for my NAS. While CasaOS has a relatively short list of officially supported systems, it does include Ubuntu Server! The installation process was very straightforward, and my favorite part is that it came with a built-in performance monitoring UI and Docker pre-installed!
For media streaming, I went with Navidrome as the backend and StreamMusic as the mobile app for listening. I also added a few scraping services. So far, I’m only using the built-in eMMC for storage, without any external drives. I’ve stored around 100 lossless audio tracks, which just about fills the available space. Luckily, my playlist isn’t likely to grow much beyond that!
As of now, it’s been running smoothly for over a week without any issues, and the whole process turned out to be surprisingly hassle-free.
If anyone’s interested in photos, I’ll upload them once I’ve finished documenting the setup process.