ullbeking

Hello! I have a stash of OPi H3 boards and it just occurred to me that there's no way to interface them with a storage device in any decent way. What am I missing here??? I also have a lot of 100 GB SATA SSD's, and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if each SBC could have its own SSD. But then I realized... how the hell am I going to get any kind of decent IO? If it's not possible with SSD's connected locally, let's forget them and then think, what other storage device can I use so that my OPi boards have some respectable IO device to work with? Please tell me where the gap in my understanding is?! Thanks!

Hello all, I was setting up a my favorite SBC of all time, the Orange Pi +2E, and I can't believe that I've been so oblivious to this issue for so long, and that there is no easy solution!!! OK, so I'm doing a massive hardware clearout, and I've getting to my OPI's. Part of this hardware clearout is to finish the project I started (if feasible and still useful). I have loads of approx. Intel DC 3000 series SATA drives around 80-200 GB, and I thought these would be perfect "user data" SSD's for each of the SSD's. But then I realized... and my heart sank as I realized this issue is a problem across most OPi boards after consulting the table. The only way to directly connect an SSD to my beloved OPi +2E's is via USB 2!!! If it were USB 3 then that'd be fine, but USB 2 is going to make the SSD perform slow as molasses, relative to normal operation, isn't it?! HUH!!! How about that! The only other option for local storage is eMMC, which is a paltry 16 GB. This leaves Ethernet. OK, cool. It's common, for example, to access one's own "user data" via NFS v3 or v4. By the way, I think the jury is still out on whether it's worth moving on up to v4 now -- still after all these days, is it? So really, if I have a pile of the same model SBC, and I want to set up an HA cluster, then I can do so. But storage for "user data" is going to have to come from plugging each cluster node into a switch giving access to an HA NAS. Is this right? Moreover, there's no effective way that I can use hyperconvergence with one disk associated per node, because there's no way of attaching fast or durable storage to each node. I know that this is kind of the point (in the case of storage that fails because it's not durable, i.e., eMMC or SD flash card), but the failure rate will be so high that I estimate I'd need in the order of 100 SBC's iust to maintain availability... and performance won't ever be that great.

Thank you @Igor! Until now I didn't realize that Armbian comes with such a wonderful set of services. This, along with @vlad59's reply, solves my problems, i.e., I now know which direction to proceed in. Thank you!

Awlright! Thank you @vlad59! This is exactly the part of the official docs that I need, and somehow missed despite looking specifically for instructions like this. I looked at the K3S website for preparation, and this snippet is on the very front page: curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh - This idiom is very poor due to many reasons and is a serious red flag. I think regular K8S would be better.

Thank you @vlad59. This is very reassuring. What packages did you install to get it working? From Armbian, and also from Docker Hub? It's not clear from the official Docker instructions what I'm supposed to do exactly. One of the issues that sticks out immediately, is that Docker Engine (https://hub.docker.com/search?type=edition&offering=community) only comes in x86 versions from the official website. I might have to go hunting around on the Docker GitHub pages to figure out how to build it for ARM unless Armbian already has binaries in its repositories. My aim is to turn a OPi +2E cluster into a Kubernetes cluster, but the instructions I have need modification because a.) they assume RPi 3 (or 2); and b.) they assume the use of Hypriot, which in my opinion only adds more things that can break in the workflow. I would rather simply use the plain OS, ensure Docker works properly on that, and then install it the usual way. OK thx for the heads up. I'll watch out for this! I wonder what causes this, i.e., whether it's a hardware glitch or software issue...

Hello, I am going to start looking into running Docker on OPi +2E soon, but before I get stuck in details I would like to know whether other people have had experience with it..? In particular, I would like to know what to expect when trying to run Docker on an OPi +2E. Having a report from prior experience would be helpful. As far as I understand, Docker is still in pretty much experimental stages on ARM. Kind regards, @ullbeking

Hi all, I'm puzzled how everybody is building clusters of cheap SBC's, but nobody is implementing HA, redundancy, resiliency, failover, etc. They're just SBC's networked together. The SBC's are underprovisioned for Ceph, so I think that even if a Ceph configuration was managed to be shoehorned in, it wouldn't perform well. I don't know if DRDB is an option. How are people actually doing implementing real clustering technology on Orange Pi, for example? I'm using OPi+2E. Kind regards, Andrew

Wait, what the fuck? I purchased a couple of OPi +2E only a few days ago solely on the basis of repeated assurances from Xunlong that they would be exactly the same as previous batch from before they went out of stock. After I got burned by the OPi Zero rev. 1.4 overheating issue, I was so careful not to be subject to unannounced changes yet again. I'll wait until they arrive and have a closer look before making too many presumptions. If this does indeed turn out to be true then I may have to reconsider any future intent to invest in learning about Orangi Pi and spending money on these things.

Thank you @chechu2k5! These videos are super helpful. I feel like I actually have a bit of a clue about what to do now.

Hi, I understand that powering the Orange Pi Zero through the USB OTG interface is convenient but suboptimal due to low power, especially if you have other devices attached to the board. I've seen recommendations that powering the board directly via the 5V and GND on the GPIO from a clean and sufficiently powerful power supply is preferable. I know in theory what needs to be done but I don't know how to physically connect to the board. The GPIO is a 2x13 row of conductive holes in the board. (Is there a name for this sort of thing, by the way?) Say I have two wires, 5V and GND. How do I physically attach a wire to one a hole? Do I need to solder them on directly, or are there simpler and easier ways? I have looked at pin headers and breadboard jumper cables online, and these look potentially useful but I don't know how to use them. Would I simply get a couple of jumper cables, with at least one male connector each, and simply plug them into the appropriate holes? Do they need to be soldered or affixed to the board? What about 5V power supplies that give a steady, high quality stream of power? Perhaps I can power several devices from a single power supply. Any recommendations on the power supply itself? I've been keeping my eyes open for e-waste so I can convert the DC end of a laptop charging brick to something that can power several Orange Pis simultaneously and handle their peak current draws, but it's never available when I need it. I looked at those multi-port USB chargers, but when I did the sums they just weren't going to be powerful enough. Besides, I still have to figure out a way to connect the ends to the holes in the GPIO in any case. Thanks for any advice, ubk

@mpmc Is this with OPi Zero rev. 1.4? And are you saying that recent kernel versions include changes so that it doesn't run so hot? So that the effects of this hardware change can be mitigated by this software change? I looked at my boards (I ordered a few) and they all have the rev. 1.4 changes pictured near the start of the thread. Unless I can get them to idle cooler, and also perform cooler under load, they will be practically useless.

I am an Orange Pi newbie and was recommended the OPi Zero by a trusted source due to its simplicity. I ordered a few as spares (I may have to do some soldering, and also experimentation in the way I supply power to the board). I haven't actually used it yet. How can I tell if I got one of the "bad" revisions? Oh, I also got a few OPi R1 boards at the same time, as they seemed similarly simple to the Zero. Are there any known problems with the R1?