sata News - Page 9 of 25 - CNX Software

November 21, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Magicsee N5 Plus Amlogic S905X3 TV Box Comes with a 2.5″ SATA HDD/SSD Bay

Amlogic S905X3 TV boxes have been announced since June. S905X3 is Amlogic’s first Arm Cortex-A55 processor and targets 4K UHD HDR TV boxes. If you plan to play files locally, you may do so from a USB hard drive connected to one of the USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 ports, but Magicsee N5 Plus offers another option thanks to a SATA bay for 2.5″ hard drives or SSD’s. Magicsee N5 Plus specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.9 GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB or 4GB DDR4 Storage – 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot, 2.5″ SATA HDD/SSD bay up to 4TB Video & Audio Output HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDCP, CEC, HDR 3.5mm AV jack for composite video (480i/576i) and stereo audio Optical S/PDIF Video Playback – 10-bit H.265 up to 8K @ […]

November 8, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - 6 Comments

Kodlix GK45 Gemini Lake Mini PC Supports up to 3 SSDs, 3 4K Displays, and Dual Gigabit Ethernet

Kodlix GK45 Mini PC with up to 3 SSD and 3 Displays Kodlix computers and accessories are designed for industry and home use. The GK45 is the latest mini-PC built for 4K video options and features, and supports as many as 3 SSDs. The GK45 has 1 x DP, 1 x HDMI, 2 x Ethernet Ports, as well as a USB Type-C display/power port. GK45 Mini PC Storage Expansion Options The GK45 has expanded storage capabilities, and can support up to 3 SSDs, in various formats, starting with 64 GB of eMMC (on-board) or M.2 NVMe 2242 128GB SSD, with support for expansion as follows: M.2 NGFF 2280 SSD up to 2TB SATA 3.0 6.0Gbps M.2 NVMe 2242 SSD up to 1TB 2.5″ SATA HDD up to 2TB SATA 3.0 6.0Gbps GK45 Mini PC Basics The GK45 runs an Intel Celeron J4105 Gemini Lake processor, that runs at a speed […]

August 15, 2019March 31, 2020 by Stephen Vicinanza - 2 Comments

Commell LE-37N 3.5″ SBC is Powered by Intel Whiskey Lake-U Core i7-8665UE Processor

Commell has announced its 3.5” LE-37N SBC run by the 8th generation Whiskey Lake-U quad-core processor. The board has support for triple displays, 4x USB 3.1 Gen 2, 2x SATA III 2x GbE, M2 and Mini-PCIe. Previously we reported on the ASRock IMB-1216 mini-ITX board powered by a choice of Whiskey Lake-U SoCs, as well as the crowdfunded UP Xtreme Whiskey Lake-U SBC. LE-37N Whiskey Lake-U SBC The LE-37N miniboard platform is specifically designed for the Whiskey Lake-U Intel processors with the FCBGA1528 sockets. But it was built with the quad-core, 8-thread, 1.7 GHz Core i7-8665UE with an 8MB cache, 15W TDP and 24 EU Intel Generation 9.5 HD Graphics. It supports DDR4 memory in two SO-DIMM 2400 MHz slots for up to a total of 32GB. The 8th Generation Whiskey Lake-U i7 processor is more power-efficient and supports Linux and Windows OSes. Extra Features and Display Options There is […]

July 14, 2019August 4, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

ODROID-H2 Review – Part 2: Ubuntu 19.04

After many months of delays due to Intel not mass-producing Gemini Lake processors, Hardkernel started selling ODROID-H2 again, more exactly ODROID-H2 Rev. B, and the end of last month, and the company sent me a full kit for evaluation. You can check out ODROID-H Rev. B with Type 3 case and the assembly instructions in the first part of the review. I’ve now had time to play with the board using the pre-installed Ubuntu 19.04 operating systems so I’ll report my experience in this second part. Note that ODROID-H2 does not rely on a custom version of Ubuntu, and instead you can download and flash Ubuntu 18.04 or 19.04 ISO directly from Ubuntu website. First Boot and System Information I had already connected two SATA drives inside the enclosure, one SSD and one HDD, but before booting the device I connected an HDMI cable, one Ethernet cable, USB keyboard & […]

June 27, 2019June 27, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

NanoPi M4 RK3399 SBC Price Drops to $50 and Up

The launch of Raspberry Pi 4 SBC has generated lots of interest, especially with the extra performance and low $35 price tag that has made most alternatives suddenly less interesting. However, Raspberry Pi 4 benchmarks show it’s not quite the fastest board around, and for example, Rockchip RK3399 platforms are still quite faster, sometimes as much as twice as fast. They do cost much more though, often more than twice, and so far one of the cheapest RK3399 boards was NanoPi M4 going for $65. FriendlyELEC has now decided, certainly in response to Raspberry Pi 4 offering, to lower the price to $50 for the 2GB RAM version which compares to $45 with Raspberry Pi 4 2GB, as well as $75 for the 4GB RAM version (was $95). NanoPi M4 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up […]

May 25, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NODE Mini Server V2 is a Raspberry Pi Based Storage Server for the Decentralized Web

We’ve previously covered networked hard drive enclosures with Ethernet and/or WiFi running OpenWrt or Ubuntu that allows you to easily and fairly cheaply connect SATA drives to your local network with models such as Blueendless X3. NODE has done something similar with a DIY project featuring a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. NODE Mini Server V2 connects the popular SBC to a 2.5″ SATA hard drive over USB and is designed to build out the physical infrastructure for the decentralized web (e.g. IPFS) that would allow users to replace remote servers with nodes that they themselves own and operate. Having said that nothing would prevent you from using this as a simple NAS although performance will not be as optimal as the aforementioned products due to the lack of SATA or USB 3.0 interface, as well as having “Gigabit” Ethernet limited to 300 Mbps. Having said that the design could […]

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 38 Comments

Blueendless X3 Networked “HDD NAS Case” Runs Ubuntu on Marvell ARMADA 3720 SoC

We’ve previously covered inexpensive Kimax’ Ethernet & WiFi HDD enclosures for 2.5″ SATA drives, powered by MediaTek processor and running OpenWrt. If you need something more powerful and versatile yet still affordable, the easiest way is now likely to go with SBC based solutions such as ODROID-HC1/HC2 or dual SATA NAS enclosure for RockPro64. There may be another interesting option, as I’ve just been informed about another model of those networked HDD enclosure called Blueendless X3 “HDD NAS case” with Ethernet only (no WiFi), and that is equipped with the same Marvel ARMADA 3720 dual core Cortex-A53 processor as found in Marvell ESPRESSOBin board. Blueendless X3 specifications: SoC – Marvell ARMADA 3720 (88F3720) dual core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.1 GHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash for OS, SATA 3.0 interface for 2.5″ drives based on ASMedia ASM1092R port multiplier Networking – 1x […]

May 13, 2019May 14, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 34 Comments

How One Line of Code Tripled Allwinner A20 SATA Write Performance

If you’ve been following this blog long enough, you may remember that all linux-sunxi community work aiming at improving u-boot and Linux software support on Allwinner processors started with Allwinner A10 processor found in MeLE A1000 TV box back in 2012, which at the time provided an interesting alternative to Raspberry Pi board that was in short supply at launch time and several months after. One of the most interesting feature found in Allwinner A10 single core Arm Cortex-A8 processor was its SATA interface, and Allwinner A20 was announced a few months later with a dual core Cortex-A7 processor and virtually the same peripherals as Allwinner A10, including SATA. However when I tested CubieTruck board connected to a mechanical drive, I noticed sequential SATA performance was fine for reads (~180MB/s), but writes were fairly slow at around 36 MB/s. Other people complained about it, and some looked into it, and […]