I have a project that I want to do but will require “storage” either an SSD or something similar to be added to the RPi. can’t use USB Thumb Drive as those devices are IO directionally biased… as in they will either be written to OR read from at any given moment and not both directions at once (like normal storage). And my project would require simultaneous bi-directional IOs.
So does anyone know of an adapter that I can add to a RPi to added a SSD drive to it? or something similar?
thanks for letting me get (semi-)off topic here…
sb
You could go Banana Pi or Orange PI with SATA II port.
(depending on your project if thats good for you)
The GPIO is slower than the USB most likely so there is no adapter of any kind that is going to save you there. But there are USB adapters for the SSD if that helps.
Only thing to dislike on the Banana PI is display detection sucks.
Orange PI is really cheap, but display detection sucks and I cannot find any way to get approved on their forums so I can download files I need (or at least think I need).
Banana PI is my choice of computer at the moment if I need headless computer or just to use on a display where I know it works since its by far faster than the Raspberry.
Now Banana PI M2 (the quad core) does not have SATA Port though, only M1, which is dual core has which might push you towards a Orange PI that has quad core machine with SATA support. Banana PI will release soon 8 core machine though that has SATA port.
I use the Banana PI every day under really heavy load at compiling things.
Note I have not tried a SATA port though since neither my M2 or the Orange Pi 2 has Sata Port, I had other needs that came first.
Its another type of ARMv7 compatible processor. So you take the Raspian OS from the Banana PI website to have correct kernel drivers and such. After that everything is same as far as Xojo is concerned.
(Is only the annoyingly poor display detection, which maybe is ok if you got pure HDMI monitor no DVI to HDMI or Display Port to HDMI, not sure)
[quote=222899:@Maurizio Rossi]Actually Bananapi and Orangepi boards does not have real native SATA ports.
On these boards the SATA interface is connected to an USB port.[/quote]
I cannot find anything the supports this claim. Anything I find is that its SATA II interface, and real world speed tests show its 5x faster on Banana PI than its USB which would support that its not on top of the USB controller.
If you take a look at the docs of processors embedded in these boards you don’t find any native SATA controller.
These SATA ports are connected to an USB port internal to the processor or to an external USB hub connected to the controller.
Schematics of these boards and datasheet of the processors are freely available. Allwinner A20 processor Allwinner H3 processor
The processors in Raspberry, Banana and Orange are designed for multimedia players where SATA is not usually required.
Real disk interfaces are tipically embedded in more powerful A9 ARM processors.
Well the Original BananaPI Scematics show there is some kind of SATA Controller with on the A20 Chip Banana Pi M1+ Schematic also shown in the A20 Datasheet
I was looking only at the A20 block diagram where the SATA controller is totally absent.
So mixing this incomplete info with the Orangepi board picture (H3 cpu) I was totally wrong.
