GMKtec Mini PC Windows 11 Pro Intel N100 (Up to 3.4GHz) 4C/4T, Mini Desktop Computer Dual LAN 1000Mbps 12GB DDR5 1TB Hard Drive, Micro PC 4K, Triple Display, WiFi6, BT5.2, Energy Efficient Nucbox G2
I built a cloud server based on this box. First I tested the windows 11 and it works fine. Then came the home cloud server. Also known as NAS (or network area storage).
INTRODUCTION
The G2 has USB 3.2 ports. So, I added a 1 terabyte USB NVME-SSD from Lexar. Also temporarily plugged a portable DVD reader. The latter is pretty slow but it is just for installation. So I changed the bios of the G2 and booting from the DVD reader I installed openmediavault 6.5 onto the SSD. Then set the bios to boot openmediavault (aka OMV).
OMV comes with a debian version of linux as it’s based OS. And the OMV software is layered on top.
Then I added an 8 TB seagate disk on another USB port. This needed to be re-formatted for use with OMV and I chose EXT4 format because it is the most flexible. The disk ended up giving 7.28 TB of usable storage after formatting.
Next I installed CasaOS because it has really cool home applications and runs a Docker management system. More on that later.
Next, using the OMV panel I created an NFS server to make the G2 cloud appear to my linux desktop. And then an SMB server to make it appear to the W11 machine.
On W11 I copied all my audible books in AAX and MP3 format to the G2. This was 329 GB of data and it took an hour. The average data transfer rate was 50 MBytes per second. Thats 500 megabits. It gave my wifi a pretty good workout.
RESULT:
I can now share files between windows and linux via this shared cloud device.
Videos on Amazon page here: https://a.co/d/1QKNlmp
Here is my dashboard:
I am running CasaOS and here is a panel from it:
The CasaOS OpenSpeedTest app measures my upload speed of 484.8 Mbps exceeds the 405.6 Mbps download speed to the G2.
My plex account on CasaOS:
And of course when I went to make the screen snap I totally got lost in a episode of Doc Martin on live Plex TV. Cannot resist that Cornish countryside.
Resources:
OMV on raspberry PI: https://www.naturalborncoder.com/hardware/raspberry-pi/2022/11/21/adding-an-storage-drive-and-smb-share-to-openmediavault-on-raspberry-pi/
More on this later.