Using a Raspberry Pi as a Network-Attached Storage Device: Performance and Limitations

This paper evaluates the usage of several Single-Board Computers (SBCs) from the Raspberry Pi Foundation when used as Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices. Network shares were exported using widely accepted file-sharing protocols (SSHFS, NFS, SMB, and SMB with encryption), and experiments were conducted to assess write and read performance using throughput as the primary metric. At the storage level, all suitable technology available for each SBC model was evaluated. According to this study, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ may be used as a NAS device in projects with very low requirements. Its limitations include a small amount of RAM, a less powerful SoC, and USB 2.0 being the best way to attach storage to the SBC. The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 8 GB of RAM significantly outperformed its predecessor, due to a much larger amount of RAM, a superior SoC, and USB 3.0 as the best interface to attach storage to the SBC. The Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM notably exceeded the other two SBCs as a NAS device, especially when privacy should be implemented, since its SoC has hardware support for common cryptographic algorithms.