if my Helios64 board dies - what can I replace it with (the case/powersupply/drives/etc... are all good)

[Rmleonard]

my Helios64 Board is now so unstable -- it on its own isn't worth putting in more of my time...
but the rest of the NAS system "seems" fine -- so

 

is there anything I can replace the logic board with ??

are there any "working" boards to be purchased anywhere?

I've looked all over and the board "seems" close to the tinkerboard but I don't think it is one.

I believe that it was a custom build.

 

anyone else just try to replace the board and move on?

 

Rich Leonard

[TRS-80]

 

Quote

I've looked all over and the board "seems" close to the tinkerboard but I don't think it is one.

I believe that it was a custom build.

 

 

Indeed, the Helios64 mainboard was a custom board, based on RK3399, but with a lot of nice features added, and tailored for NAS use-case.

 

An article I wrote some time back, So, you want to run a file server? comes at the problem from a broader perspective, but might give you some ideas.  At the end, I come to conclusion of using similar RK3399 based device, however I have no idea if the physical form factor of that device will be a good fit for the Helios64 case.  Also I know that Helios64 had some nice integrated things like power switch, PSU, etc... of course you would be losing those (and I don't know offhand what kind of power the boards require, relative to one another, so not sure if you could still use same PSU or not).  So in the end, you may have to ask yourself, is it worth it trying to re-use the case, or simply go with some more generic (and thus re-usable / re-composable) components like DIN rail power supply plus some simple, cheap metal rails (from hardware store) to screw the HDDs into.

 

Another alternative, I have read some posts from a few people who did get things stable, but maybe you tried all those things already without success.

 

Please do report back your findings, as I am sure more and more people will find themselves in the same boat as you as time goes on.

[crossi]

I'm facing the same situation with a unstable system after trying to update. Having spent a lot of time into troubleshooting and expecting that community support for this device at least will not get better I am also looking for an alternative.

Looking for an alternative board is also not that easy because the size (nano-ITX) is not widely spread.

 

Furthermore one requirement for me would be very common hardware/architecture to not depend on special linux distribution, so getting a good mainline support.

 

These days was the release of a new Odroid x86 board "H4" which comes with 4 Sata-Ports. The board physically seems to fit into the Helios64-case but maybe requires some adaption to different hole-positions.

Did anybody else already considered that as an option ?