Power off with HDD over active HUB

[copytco]

I have read through the forum that Banana Pi Pro does not support directly powering drive over USB as it might be too much for this board. In my setup I use 2 A power adapter for my Banana Pi and an active HUB with power supply of 1 A, but with limit of 500 mA for HDD. Still, when connecting HUB to Banana Pi and HDD to HUB the same issue appears as when no HUB is used - the red diode turns off and Banana Pi looses power. I have already tried several HDDs (500 GB, 320 GB, 2 TB) - all with the same result. Anyone has some idea why this might be occuring despite powering drives from external source? Does Armbian have any software limitations that are creating this issue?

Also, may it be more beneficial to plug HDD using SATA? Does the rule of external power supply also apply in this case?

[tkaiser]

24 minutes ago, copytco said:

Does Armbian have any software limitations that are creating this issue?

 

No, that's 100% hardware issue.

 

Rule of thumb: almost every SBC that is equipped with Micro USB for DC-IN is a pile of crap since undervoltage will happen.

 

You suffer from undervoltage and the most easy fix with a connected HDD is to power both HDD and Banana Pi Pro from the same external 5V PSU with good cables. Avoiding Micro USB is key to success (use the SATA power port to power the Banana from the same source you power your HDD from).

 

You could do a web search for 'sata power enclosure site:lemaker.org' or directly jump to http://forum.lemaker.org/thread-14822-1-1.html

[copytco]

7 minutes ago, tkaiser said:

You could do a web search for 'sata power enclosure site:lemaker.org' or directly jump to http://forum.lemaker.org/thread-14822-1-1.html

 

I skimmed through the topic seeing that very powerful supply is used (8 A!), while currently I have 2 A for board + 0,5 A for HDD. Should it not be enough? In some topics on LeMaker forum people said it used to work for them with just active USB HUB without changing BPi's power supply.

[tkaiser]

28 minutes ago, copytco said:

(8 A!)

Voltage not current. Ohm's law (shitty cables/connectors --> high resistance --> voltage drop). Micro USB --> evil.

[copytco]

On 11/4/2017 at 10:54 PM, tkaiser said:

Micro USB --> evil.

Ok, so one more thing. If I get it correctly, I should supply current to SATA, but in the picture I see that it is marked as output. Why?

 

 

Therefore, should I use a normal desktop ATX power supply? I guess it will be much margin left with that piece of hardware.

 

Or is it the other way around and I should leave Pi's power supply as it is and use something like that to supply HDD from SATA port?

[tkaiser]

Just now, copytco said:

If I get it correctly, I should supply current to SATA, but in the picture I see that it is marked as output. Why?

 

Because you're dealing with a Banana Pi, these are products for which the vendor NEVER provides correct information. Do a google search for 'fb3 ferrit site:lemaker.org' to get some real information (all hidden somewhere in a Chinese forum).

[copytco]

Clear, so I think the voltage drop on microUSB comes from that part, correct?

 

Still, I see that people are powering drives from the SATA power, like below.  Having that in mind - how should I supply the power to Pi now?

[tkaiser]

31 minutes ago, copytco said:

Or is it the other way around and I should leave Pi's power supply as it is and use something like that to supply HDD from SATA port?

 

As already said: Avoid products that feature a Micro USB port for DC-IN since you run into troubles with undervoltage especially in situations where this device then should power a connected disk. The voltage drops happening will lead to exactly your symptoms.

 

We know this serious issue from Banana Pi, Banana Pi Pro, Banana Pi R1 and since this vendor is absolutely irresponsible they repeat this shit show even in 2017 again: 

 

You need either an 20AWG rated short Micro USB cable then it might work or you power your HDD directly from the PSU and not through the Banana board. 5V/2A are sufficient but still the problem is mostly called voltage drop / undervoltage.

 

@Lion Wang the guy responsible for this flawed hardware design already explained what's important to fix his own boards: https://web.archive.org/web/20160409075811/http://www.bananapi.com:80/index.php/forum/news/348-solved-problems-with-ssds-or-hdds-using-onboard-sata-on-bpi-r1-onboard-power-is-not-sufficient?start=6#1494 (according to him you need to increase input voltage to 5.5V to compensate for the voltage drops happening -- and the same guy is responsible for BPi M2 Berry design, fascinating, isn't it?)

 

BTW: You have a hardware problem. Why are you asking here for support in a forum that's about a community developed software project?

 

[tkaiser]

10 minutes ago, copytco said:

so I think the voltage drop on microUSB comes from that part, correct?

 

Micro USB for SBC is crap. Rated for only 1.8A, high contact resistance but most importantly encouraging users to use wrong powering sources (crappy phone chargers) or wrong cables (crappy/average Micro USB cables -- USB2 is rated for 500mA max and that's why most of the power lines in these cables are too thin): http://linux-sunxi.org/Powering_the_boards_and_accessories#Micro_USB

 

Again: why do you search for help with Banana Pi hardware issues in a software project's forum?  No objections just want to learn the reasons...

 

 

[copytco]

1 minute ago, tkaiser said:

Again: why do you search for help with Banana Pi hardware issues in a software project's forum?  No objections just want to learn the reasons...

 

It takes me much more time to read the stuff than to you to write.  At the beginning I did not know if it is software or hardware related issue, therefore I posted the problem here and on LeMedia forum.  There I got no answer, but here you provided me a bunch of very important points.

 

Ok, so generally the easiest way for me would be to buy an externally power supplier HDD case with SATA output that I could plug directly to the board.

[tkaiser]

12 minutes ago, copytco said:

Ok, so generally the easiest way for me would be to buy an externally power supplier HDD case with SATA output that I could plug directly to the board.

Ask @Lion Wang, he is responsible for these designs, repeating this insane shit show even in 2017 with BPi M2 Berry. Good luck!  

[Naguissa]

It takes me much more time to read the stuff than to you to write.  At the beginning I did not know if it is software or hardware related issue, therefore I posted the problem here and on LeMedia forum.  There I got no answer, but here you provided me a bunch of very important points.
 
Ok, so generally the easiest way for me would be to buy an externally power supplier HDD case with SATA output that I could plug directly to the board.

Ask [mention=2979]Lion Wang[/mention], he is responsible for these designs, repeating this insane shit show even in 2017 with BPi M2 Berry. Good luck!  

I'll try him to not set anything on fire...


Check tkaiser link to sinxi website about powering the board, there are few options. You can even use shitty microUSB, but with a correct power plug and without powering devices.

Forget about board's SATA power connector. Don't use that.

For HDD, use external power plug or a case with external power connector.

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[tkaiser]

2 minutes ago, Naguissa said:

Forget about board's SATA power connector. Don't use that.

 

Huh? Those Banana boards are all designed to create the impression that SATA HDDs can be powered by the board. At least that's how @Lion Wang designed this board back then and he even repeated this 'design' this year with Banana Pi M2 Berry: Micro USB for DC-IN, SATA power connector on the PCB, knowing that this will cause trouble for an awful lot of his customers.

 

Why shouldn't users not expect that this works? And why do we as Armbian users do here peer-to-peer support for boards that were designed poorly in a deliberate way? Do we as Armbian project have also a responsibility to save users from buying stuff that can't work properly since as soon as Armbian supports a board it could be considered a recommendation?

[tkaiser]

@Lion Wang and @Nora Lee: can you please comment on why you combine Micro USB for DC-IN on your devices with a SATA power port and sell even an adapter cable for 2.5" HDDs?

[Naguissa]

 
Huh? Those Banana boards are all designed to create the impression that SATA HDDs can be powered by the board. At least that's how [mention=2979]Lion Wang[/mention] designed this board back then and he even repeated this 'design' this year with Banana Pi M2 Berry: Micro USB for DC-IN, SATA power connector on the PCB, knowing that this will cause trouble for an awful lot of his customers.
 
Why shouldn't users not expect that this works? And why do we as Armbian users do here peer-to-peer support for boards that were designed poorly in a deliberate way? Do we as Armbian project have also a responsibility to save users from buying stuff that can't work properly since as soon as Armbian supports a board it could be considered a recommendation?

You know it well, fon't play dumb...

Because all Banana specs are crap.

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[Naguissa]

And in addition: also, they provide 0 support.

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[copytco]

On 11/8/2017 at 7:15 AM, Naguissa said:

For HDD, use external power plug or a case with external power connector.

 

 

 

This is what I am still struggling to find with reasonable price. Can you reccomend something?

[xeros]

On 11/13/2017 at 8:47 AM, copytco said:

This is what I am still struggling to find with reasonable price. Can you reccomend something?

I'm second to that - could anyone recommend good 12V+5V power adapter to that for reasonable price?

 

So far I've been successfully running (for over a year or two 24h/7) Banana Pro on 5V 2A MicroUSB power with two HDDs together (320GB 2,5" connected via USB 2.0 adapter & 500GB 2,5" connected to SATA, powered from Banana Pro board SATA power connector), but recently I've got undervoltage problem (not sure if it's the board or the power cable adapter) - just connecting the 320GB USB disk shuts off the board on disk spin up (even nothing else connected) and 500GB disk on SATA gets SATA reset many times on disk spin up (also no other devices connected). Disks do not have such issues being connected to laptop (with the same USB-SATA adapter), but still probably reaching EOL (7y of work, mostly 24h/7 and SMART is not so happy).

 

I'm currently thinking about single bigger disk (2TB-4TB) rather 3,5" connected to SATA with 12V+5V external power supply (which one?) or connecting to USB 2.0 port with USB 3.0 actively powered disk case (with 12V power adapter).

I know that USB 2.0 will be performance bottleneck, but I think that somewhere next year (in half year or later) I'll buy something more powerful than Banana Pro (ROCK64 or something on Allwinner H6 with USB 3.0) and need to find some solution for now where I can re-use the disk later with new board.

 

PS. Sorry for HW questions here, but discussion is already ongoing and @tkaiser you'll covering here very important topics and it seems we can't get better support on other forums.

[xeros]

I have ordered this (12V 2A + 5V 2A) one: http://allegro.pl/zasilacz-hdd-3-5-cd-rom-dvd-12v-2a-5v-2a-molex-i7028661180.html

that I'm going to use with MOLEX to SATA power cable.

Let's hope it will be OK.

@copytco, I'll let you know how it works when I'll get it. I have few older 2,5" & 3,5" disks around for testing.

[Naguissa]

I'm using some old PSUs I had at home, specially one I got years ago from Aliexpress with a cheap USB - ATA bridge I got for reading few old PATA disks., so no idea.

[Naguissa]

On 17/11/2017 at 5:31 PM, xeros said:

I have ordered this (12V 2A + 5V 2A) one: http://allegro.pl/zasilacz-hdd-3-5-cd-rom-dvd-12v-2a-5v-2a-molex-i7028661180.html

that I'm going to use with MOLEX to SATA power cable.

Let's hope it will be OK.

@copytco, I'll let you know how it works when I'll get it. I have few older 2,5" & 3,5" disks around for testing.

This one is just like the one I have described above., identical. Works perfectly to me.

[xeros]

12 hours ago, Naguissa said:

This one is just like the one I have described above., identical. Works perfectly to me.

Right, thanks. I've got two of them today (similar ones, but having different weight) and so far so good - tested them both with few older 2,5" & 3,5" disks around and no problems in few hours of stress tests.

So, now I think I'll buy 4TB WD Red 3,5" disk :-)