Raspberry Pi project

[SimpleX]

Hey guys, (Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this)

I was wondering if anyone could help me out and tell me if this is going to be possible ?

I want to get 2 of the new Pi 3's, have one Pi connected to the modem and install a VPN onto it, and have it act like a Wifi hotspot,

then have another pi connected to that pi, but also connected to two other external hard drives,

Is this possible ? and also have the content of the second pi shared across the network, so anyone who is connected to my network can see any videos, photos and the various data stored on this pi.

Cheers

[W. H. Heydt]

Welcome to the Forums...

The Pi3B is a 4-core system. You should be able to have a single Pi act as both a WiFi hotspot (aka "access point" or "range extender") and a NAS consisting of 2 HDDs.

Bear in mind, though, that all of the I/O (wired Ethernet and HDD access) is going to going across a singe USB 2.0 connection, so the *aggregate* data rate is limited to 480Mb/s. Doing what you propose--using two Pis--would separate the wired Ethernet (100Mb/s) from the HDD transfers, at the cost of putting the HDD access across the the slower WiFi link, so no real gain from doing that.

[SimpleX]

Hey mate,

The reason for why I proposed 2 Pi's is because the modem is downstairs, and I am living in a shared house, I do not wish anyone to touch the hard drives and I do not want them visible to anyone,

But instead of grabbing two Pi's now, I was just going to go with 1 Pi and leave it in my room, which will access the modem Wi-Fi, my worries right now is, if I have a VPN installed on the Pi, will I still be able to SSH into it ?

Cheers

[ejolson]

my worries right now is, if I have a VPN installed on the Pi, will I still be able to SSH into it?

Unless you do something special with firewall settings ssh will listen for connections on all network devices whether inside or outside the VPN. Will the VPN be used only on the WiFi inside the house or does it bridge to a remote location?

[SimpleX]

my worries right now is, if I have a VPN installed on the Pi, will I still be able to SSH into it?

Unless you do something special with firewall settings ssh will listen for connections on all network devices whether inside or outside the VPN. Will the VPN be used only on the WiFi inside the house or does it bridge to a remote location?

No the VPN will only be used on the WiFi inside the house

[ejolson]

No the VPN will only be used on the WiFi inside the house

It seems the VPN will be used to encrypt information sent from one Pi to the other. That makes sense under the assumption that the WiFi inside the house is open access without a password.

As a wireless router costs less than a Pi 3 and likely works better as a router, why not buy a router, connect it to the modem and enable WiFi encryption. Put the Pi upstairs with the HDs and access it anywhere using the WiFi.