M3 and SATA interface

[Rui Ribeiro]

I found it quite interesting the  Banana PI M3, however the block diagrams seems to show the SATA interface is connected to the USB bus. Has someone the experience of using it?

[tkaiser]

Not working as expected: http://forum.banana-pi.org/t/is-sata-working-on-any-of-the-m3-images/776

 

The GL830 USB-to-SATA bridge used there is the worst choice ever (slow, crappy, obviously with a 2 TB limitation). SinoVoip sends me a review sample and I'll report here soon: https://nolp.dhl.de/nextt-online-public/set_identcodes.do?idc=7214605425

 

BTW: I started already with a wiki page for this weird device: http://linux-sunxi.org/Banana_Pi_M3

[Rui Ribeiro]

Interesting. If you mind my asking, what do you have any idea if the orange pi 2 octa core is any good?

[tkaiser]

Interesting. If you mind my asking, what do you have any idea if the orange pi 2 octa core is any good?

 

Pardon? As far as I know they have 4 devices:

 

3 shipping in different variations and a new one using the H64 (slow Cortex-A53 quad-core, but "64-bit" -- the overclocker crowd over there will love it)

 

• A20 based  "Orange Pi" and "Orange Pi Mini"
• H3 based with external GBit Ethernet PHY using a crappy USB-to-SATA bridge and an internal USB hub limiting performance
• H3 based relying on the internal 100 Mb/s Ethernet PHY (the Orange Pi PC the only interesting one since it features access to 4 USB ports)
• H64 based "Orange Pi 3" in development

 

All variants quite unimpressive except of the "OPi PC" due to its low price and the 4 available USB ports. I've to wait until my 2nd OPi PC arrives together with a camera module and then I'll write a review here.

 

Update: A new H3 model -- Orange Pi One -- has been announced: http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/11/26/raspberry-pi-zero-is-a-5-board-based-on-broadcom-bcm2835-processor/#comment-504411-- I hope they do not save Ethernet port and camera connector.

[tkaiser]

I found it quite interesting the Banana PI M3, however the block diagrams seems to show the SATA interface is connected to the USB bus. Has someone the experience of using it?

 

Now I can since my M3 arrived this noon: It's slow as hell: 13 MB/s write and 23 MB/s read. I will ask whether some Orange Pi Plus users made better experiences (uses also the GL830 but not behind the internal 4-port-USB hub) to confirm this disaster. With mainline kernel and a good USB enclosure you're more than twice as fast and being able to use SATA on A20 boards it's 3.5-10 times the performance (write/read).