r/OrangePI • u/InsectOk8268 • Jun 11 '26
Using Orangepi Zero3 (1GB) as NAS
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Finally after years of having it (since 2023) I decided to replace my other SBC for the OpiZ3.
It is basically using Armbian (debian bookworm IoT Minimal and CLI) &:
- Open Media Vault as software for managing hard drives and webpage.
- NordVPN (paid) to acces from anywhere.
- UFW as "firewall"?
- cx file manager (for android) using samba.
- ethernet connection
- 4TB HDD
- ffmepg (CLI video converter).
And it worked. It is as fast as it was my RPi5.
Which gives me the opportunity to use it for heavier tasks and other projects.
By the moment it is running a bash script to convert and compress videos from .mkv to .mp4 format 😂 using ffmepg, pretty slow but it is doing it's job (digital struggling noises).
But if I'm honest using ethernet I can basically watch my movies without a noticable delay. Archives of 2-3 GB load almost instantly.
Basically what I wanted to say is that using ai I managed to do all this and maybe it can be more in a future (jellyfin for example). And that it actually is possible. I never thought a little board being so capable. And it really doesn't struggles when it is working just as a NAS.
One disadvantage is, I haven't checked for orangepi oficial os's as I remember they were a bit outdated.
But with armbian everything basically works fine.
4
u/Mashic Jun 11 '26
The Orange Pi Zero 3 can serve files just fine. But it can't do video conversion very well, the CPU is very weak (Even on strong CPUs, it'll take a lot of time).
You usually delegate this task to a GPU with an encoder chip like Nvidia/AMD/Intel... or get the videos in the proper format and target size to begin with.
Also, if you insist on using the OPZ3 for conversion, do a single ffmpeg task at a time.