The beginning of TheARK

A NAS is a device that allows you to store and share files over a network. It can be used for backup, media streaming, remote access, and more. It usually has one or more hard drives that can be configured in different ways, such as RAID, to protect your data. A NAS can run different operating systems and applications, and support various protocols and services.

A Raspberry Pi is a small, low-cost, single-board computer that can be used for various purposes, such as learning programming, making games, creating art, or controlling devices. It was developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the UK and can run different operating systems, such as Linux or Windows. It can be connected to a monitor, keyboard, mouse, camera, and other peripherals.

TheARK-V1

was a Raspberry Pi 4B (4GB) running OpenMediaVault connected to 2 external USB Western Digital Hard Drives, providing a NAS and basic Plex service. OpenMediaVault is a free and open source NAS solution that runs on Debian Linux. It lets you turn your Raspberry Pi into a powerful file server with a web interface and support for various services and plugins. To use OpenMediaVault with Raspberry Pi, you need to download the ISO image from the official website and burn it to a CD or USB stick. Then you can boot from it and install it on your Raspberry Pi. You can also install it from the command line using a script that will download and set up everything for you. Once you have installed OpenMediaVault, you can access its web interface using your Raspberry Pi’s IP address. There you can configure your storage drives, file shares, users, permissions, and other settings. You can also install plugins that add more features to your NAS, such as media server, BitTorrent client, backup solution, and more.

To create a SMB share on OMV, you need to follow these steps:

• Create a user with a unique name and password, and assign it to the group sambashare
• Create a new share using the web interface of OMV, and enable the option “inherit permissions” if needed
• Enable SMB in OMV and choose the same workgroup as your Windows host (default is WORKGROUP)
• On your Windows host, open the Credential Manager and add a Windows credential with the name of your OMV server, and the username and password of the user you created on OMV
• Turn on network discovery and file sharing on your Windows host (optional)
• Browse to the network location of your OMV server and access the share you created