Nanopi-M4 SATA HAT

[JrRockeTer]

Hi,

 

Just bought the SATA HAT and before I get started, I see in the OS Support that Lubuntu and Friendly Core is supported.

Does this Exclude Armbian ?

 

I'm not overwhelmed with FriendlyCore .

 

Thank sin advance

[Da Alchemist]

Armbian is based on friendlyelecs Kernel. It does support the Hat ootb; works perfectly for me.

[JrRockeTer]

Thanks a lot for that, I actually bought a second eMMC for testing ;-)

Do yo have information on the equipment you bought and what you did ? All I have so far is the nanopi-64 and the SATA HAT and it is installed and running very well.

It would make my learning curve easier if you could share some details with me , if you have time..

Even a few words, I've never done this before and I'm very experienced with hardware so a bit of info/detail would be a real head start.

Thanks in advance.

[NicoD]

35 minutes ago, JrRockeTer said:

Do yo have information on the equipment you bought and what you did ?

You could watch my review video about it. The software has improved a lot, but all the other information is still valid.
I've also got a 32GB eMMC module on the way. For me that will be a lot better than 16GB. I can't compile the software I need on 16GB.

 

[JrRockeTer]

Thanks heaps for this, I'll have a look this weekend (I'm at work)

 

Looking forward to moving on with it.

 

[NicoD]

2 minutes ago, JrRockeTer said:

Looking forward to moving on with it. 

It's my favorite of 25 sbc's. So you're going to be happy with it.
Most other SBC's have good things about them, but also bad ones. This one everything is good.
It's got USB3, GbE, eMMC, sata-hat, great heatsink, very good software, very fast multi-core, very fast single-core, 4GB ram possible(mine is 2GB too bad, my RockPi4B has 4GB), very stable, ...
Working with the M4 is like working with a modern pc.

I did order the Odroid N2 today. It could be that one is going to detrone the NanoPi M4. But the M4 has it's small form factor as advantage to make a laptop out of it.

[pkfox]

Hi Nico, are you saying the Sata hat from friendlyelec is suported by Armbian ? just got my Sata hat delivered today and though I had to install the friendlyelec OS

[NicoD]

4 minutes ago, pkfox said:

Hi Nico, are you saying the Sata hat from friendlyelec is suported by Armbian ? just got my Sata hat delivered today and though I had to instal the friendlyelec OS

I don't have the sata hat.
But...
 

 

1 hour ago, Da Alchemist said:

Armbian i based on friendlyelecs Kernel. It does support the Hat ootb; works perfectly for me.

If it works for him it should work for you.

[pkfox]

Doesn't work for me - what connections do you use ? I powered it with the barrel connector and connected a SSD drive with one of the black Sata cables, the board boots ok but blkid doesn't show the SSD drive

[Da Alchemist]

There must be two connections to the SSD of course, power and sata (there are cables for both connections).  If everthing is allright, there must be a green and a red LED turned on. Is your SSD formatted?  If not use Gparted to get it formatted.

[pkfox]

Hi Da Alchemist, I have it working now, how can I have four drives connected ? do I need a four way cable ?

 

[JrRockeTer]

On 3/29/2019 at 2:56 PM, NicoD said:

It's my favorite of 25 sbc's. So you're going to be happy with it.
Most other SBC's have good things about them, but also bad ones. This one everything is good.
It's got USB3, GbE, eMMC, sata-hat, great heatsink, very good software, very fast multi-core, very fast single-core, 4GB ram possible(mine is 2GB too bad, my RockPi4B has 4GB), very stable, ...
Working with the M4 is like working with a modern pc.

I did order the Odroid N2 today. It could be that one is going to detrone the NanoPi M4. But the M4 has it's small form factor as advantage to make a laptop out of it.

 

Thanks, it is going to be fun using it and trying everything out.

Do you always Armbian where you can, is there a reason for this, perhaps I'll find out when I exploit your videos etc.

I was going to wait for the N2 but then I thought, no, get the Nanopi-m4, I'm glad I did but will still be getting an N2.

Thanks for your info and I'm looking forward to seeing how you go with the N2.

 

[NicoD]

35 minutes ago, JrRockeTer said:

 

Thanks, it is going to be fun using it and trying everything out.

Do you always Armbian where you can, is there a reason for this, perhaps I'll find out when I exploit your videos etc.

I was going to wait for the N2 but then I thought, no, get the Nanopi-m4, I'm glad I did but will still be getting an N2.

Thanks for your info and I'm looking forward to seeing how you go with the N2.

 

Armbian is clocked at 2Ghz/1.5Ghz and the images from FriendlyElec are clocked at 1.8Ghz/1.4Ghz. This does come at a cost of higher temperatures and a higher power consumption. But it's a big difference if you do heavy cpu tasks.
I also use the media script from jmcc for the RK3399 on it(Armbian Bionic). This makes watching youtube in chromium possible, and videos up to 4k 30fps.
For gaming I use the RecalBox image for the RockPi4B/RockPro64 on a small sd-card to boot, and a USB3 SSD with all the games and recalbox. Works awesome. You can watch my Rock Pi 4B recalbox videos, it's the same on the M4.

I ordered the N2 yesterday. I can't wait for it to arrive. I think it's going to be a great one. But the RK3399's do have some advantages. The sata-hat for example via PCIe. The N2 can't have anything like that, only USB3 over 1 hub. NanoPi M4 it's 2 left USB3 ports have their own hub, and the 2 right ones too. So you can use up to 2 devices at full speed at the same time.

So the N2 is good for desktop use and gaming, but it isn't the best for a mid-range server or so. The S922X is mostly designed for TV-boxes with less connectivity.

[pkfox]

On 3/29/2019 at 6:15 PM, Da Alchemist said:

There must be two connections to the SSD of course, power and sata (there are cables for both connections).  If everthing is allright, there must be a green and a red LED turned on. Is your SSD formatted?  If not use Gparted to get it formatted.

Thanks it now works but how do I connect another three drives

[JrRockeTer]

4 hours ago, pkfox said:

Thanks it now works but how do I connect another three drives 

@Da Alchemist and @pkfox Do you have information on what drives you purchased and how  you put it together. Pictures if possible

It would give me a head start as I bought the SATA HAT and have no idea, I'm not really good at hardware ;-(

Twould be nice to have a kick start.

Thanks in advance.

[JrRockeTer]

14 hours ago, NicoD said:

Armbian is clocked at 2Ghz/1.5Ghz and the images from FriendlyElec are clocked at 1.8Ghz/1.4Ghz. This does come at a cost of higher temperatures and a higher power consumption. But it's a big difference if you do heavy cpu tasks.
I also use the media script from jmcc for the RK3399 on it(Armbian Bionic). This makes watching youtube in chromium possible, and videos up to 4k 30fps.
For gaming I use the RecalBox image for the RockPi4B/RockPro64 on a small sd-card to boot, and a USB3 SSD with all the games and recalbox. Works awesome. You can watch my Rock Pi 4B recalbox videos, it's the same on the M4.

I ordered the N2 yesterday. I can't wait for it to arrive. I think it's going to be a great one. But the RK3399's do have some advantages. The sata-hat for example via PCIe. The N2 can't have anything like that, only USB3 over 1 hub. NanoPi M4 it's 2 left USB3 ports have their own hub, and the 2 right ones too. So you can use up to 2 devices at full speed at the same time.

So the N2 is good for desktop use and gaming, but it isn't the best for a mid-range server or so. The S922X is mostly designed for TV-boxes with less connectivity.

Thanks @NicoD Your videos are good, I subscribed and look forward to seeing more on the nanopi and the N2, I also must look if you have Asus Tinker board ones as I set up my DMZ on that and am about to set up a LEMP server with Nginx.

Also thanks for the info on RecalBox and I'll look at the RockPI videos

Thanks

[pkfox]

28 minutes ago, JrRockeTer said:

@Da Alchemist and @pkfox Do you have information on what drives you purchased and how  you put it together. Pictures if possible

It would give me a head start as I bought the SATA HAT and have no idea, I'm not really good at hardware ;-(

Twould be nice to have a kick start.

Thanks in advance.

There's not much to it. If you have a heatsink then remove the four screws that attach it it to the board and replace them with the brass standoffs that are supplied with the hat. Push the hat firmly onto the header pins and put in the 4 screws. Attach the four pin Molex to the hat and the drive, then attach a SATA data cable ( the black ones ) to the hat and drive. The hat should have two led lights on. If needed format the drive.

 

[dogshome]

No issues with SATA hat on Armbian. Boot still uses the SD to get going, then everything else runs from a drive on SATA. Install to SD or EMMC and then use the Armbian utility to install to SATA.

 

I'm using Friendly OS currently as it supports hardware video acceleration in Chrome, where Armbian does not. The Bluetooth and analogue sound are also less hassle. BUT, it does not move to SATA - or I have not found out how. 

 

The power button works in both OS. This will be handy if you want a "power failure organised shutdown". 3 pin CPU power management devices exist to do this. I have on Class D amps to stop power down thumps. The shutdown speed of this board is probably less than 1/2 sec, so probably do-able.  e.g. MCP121 plus a few resistors.

 

Poor laptop snuggled in it's bag the last few weeks as the M4 is doing everything I want right now.  :-)

[JrRockeTer]

Thanks very much  @pkfox I really appreciate it! Now I have a very good idea of what it entails!

Thank you !!! I'm putting my shopping list together !

[pkfox]

On 4/7/2019 at 7:19 PM, JrRockeTer said:

Thanks very much  @pkfox I really appreciate it! Now I have a very good idea of what it entails!

Thank you !!! I'm putting my shopping list together !

You're welcome, I now have a 4TB backup system - I've ordered a case for the drives which will tidy things up and hide all the cables and I'll put some pics up when I have it sorted - it's been an enjoyable learning curve for us all

 

[JrRockeTer]

10 hours ago, pkfox said:

You're welcome, I now have a 4TB backup system - I've ordered a case for the drives which will tidy things up and hide all the cables and I'll put some pics up when I have it sorted - it's been an enjoyable learning curve for us all

 

 

Thanks, I have a very messy desk with stuff all over the place and I was a bit worried about it all being bare naked. At the moment I put an old plastic case from the Asus Tinkerboard to cover the NanoPi I look forward to seeing someone make a good case for it all. And again thank you I appreciate your help and especially your photos!

[JrRockeTer]

Thanks everyone. Bummer about having to remove it each time to change eMMC... And, am left with 4 nuts that I don't know what to do with but it is all put together, thanks @pkfox for the instructions and pictures @Da Alchemist for pictures and more ideas and of course as always for @NicoD without which I would not be moving forward very quickly with my SBC adventures!

 

[pkfox]

Glad you got it worked out I enjoyed the journey - need a new project now

 

[JrRockeTer]

My journey continues BUT

Using Armbian I can configure the nanopi to boot from the SSD BUT NO sound and no Bluetooth.

FriendlyElec I have sound and bluetooth but don't know how to boot from SSD.

So.. The adventure continues... for me at least..

 

[JrRockeTer]

On 5/4/2019 at 9:16 PM, JrRockeTer said:

My journey continues BUT

Using Armbian I can configure the nanopi to boot from the SSD BUT NO sound and no Bluetooth.

FriendlyElec I have sound and bluetooth but don't know how to boot from SSD.

So.. The adventure continues... for me at least..

 

Thanks to @NicoD my sound problems are fixed, still have issues with bluetooth but that is for next weekend!

[pkfox]

On 5/4/2019 at 8:16 PM, JrRockeTer said:

My journey continues BUT

Using Armbian I can configure the nanopi to boot from the SSD BUT NO sound and no Bluetooth.

FriendlyElec I have sound and bluetooth but don't know how to boot from SSD.

So.. The adventure continues... for me at least..

 

I'm pretty sure I read on here you can't boot from anything except SD or eMMC

[JrRockeTer]

6 minutes ago, pkfox said:

I'm pretty sure I read on here you can't boot from anything except SD or eMMC

It boots from eMMC but the file system is organized so that your / file system is on the SSD, which is perfect for my requirements!

And it feels pretty fast!

You can CD to the eMMC and see your original installation BEFORE you asked it to change to SATA!

[pkfox]

22 hours ago, JrRockeTer said:

It boots from eMMC but the file system is organized so that your / file system is on the SSD, which is perfect for my requirements!

And it feels pretty fast!

You can CD to the eMMC and see your original installation BEFORE you asked it to change to SATA!

Oh ok, how did you configure it ?

 

[JrRockeTer]

On 5/18/2019 at 10:21 AM, pkfox said:

Oh ok, how did you configure it ?

 

It's an option in armbian-config in system settings, first option, can look now cause I'm running Friendly Elec, I'd actually like to see the source to see exactly what it does so I can duplicate it when running the Friendly Elect OS.

Anyone know how easy it is to find the source tou armbian-config ?

 

[frauhottelmann]

8 minutes ago, JrRockeTer said:

It's an option in armbian-config in system settings, first option, can look now cause I'm running Friendly Elec, I'd actually like to see the source to see exactly what it does so I can duplicate it when running the Friendly Elect OS.

Anyone know how easy it is to find the source tou armbian-config ?

 

https://github.com/armbian/config