nas News - Page 2 of 17 - CNX Software

May 26, 2024May 26, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

ODROID-H4 Plus review – Part 2: Intel N97 NAS Kit and fanless SBC tested in Ubuntu 24.04

In the first part of the ODROID-H4+ kit review, I checked out the hardware and showed how to install the Intel N97 SBC into the H4 Type 3 case taking up to four 2.5-inch SATA drives. I’ve now had time to test the ODROID-H4 Plus with Ubuntu 24.04 both as an actively cooled NAS kit and a fanless SBC and will report benchmark results, 2.5GbE and storage test results, 4K and 8K YouTube video playback capability, check IBECC memory support, measure power consumption, and more in the second part of the review. Ubuntu 24.04 installation on ODROID-H4 Plus The ODROID-H4 Plus SBC does not come with any preinstalled OS since there’s no storage by default, so I installed Ubuntu 24.04 on the 128GB M.2 NVMe SSD I inserted into the board. The installation went relatively smoothly, but in hindsight, I would have probably installed the OS before installing the SBC […]

May 11, 2024May 26, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

ODROID-H4+ kit review – Part 1: Unboxing, H4 Type 3 case assembly, and first boot

I’ve just received a kit comprised of an ODROID-H4+ SBC along with a Type 3 enclosure taking up to four 2.5-inch SATA drives and related accessories for review. I’ll start with an unboxing, followed by an assembly guide, and a quick first boot in the first part of the review, before testing performance, features such as IBECC memory, power consumption, and more in the second part of the review. ODROID-H4+ kit unboxing The package I received included small packages for the “H4 Type 3” enclosure and the ODROID-H4 PLUS SBC, a 15V/4A (60W) power supply with US plug adapter, a large fan with screws, as well as four sets of SATA data and power cables. We’ve already provided the ODROID-H4, H4+, and H4 Ultra specifications in the announcement post, but let’s have another quick look at the Intel Processor N97 fanless SBC. The rear panel comes with a DC jack, […]

May 3, 2024May 3, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Geekworm X1011 board adds up to four NVMe SSDs to the Raspberry Pi 5

Geekworm X1011 is a new expansion board for the Raspberry Pi 5 with four M.2 sockets enabling the insertion of up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs with data pushed through the PCIe Gen2 interface of the popular SBC. We were already wondering why most people would want to connect two NVMe SSDs to the Raspberry Pi 5 when the Geekworm X1004 HAT+ was launched considering the 5GT/s limitation from the board and the PCIe switch, but the company decided to double the number of drives with the X1011 meaning each drive can achieve up to around 100 MB/s (or 400MB/s) when used simultaneously. It does look nice and fairly compact though. Geekworm X1011 specifications: Supported SBC – Raspberry Pi 5 and other SBCs with a compatible 16-pin PCIe FPC connector and mounting holes Chipset – ASMedia ASM1184e PCI express packet switch with 1x PCIe Gen2 x1 upstream port and 4x […]

April 29, 2024April 29, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

QNAP TS-216G 2-bay NAS features a quad-core Arm processor with NPU for image sorting and searching

QNAP TS-216G 2-bay NAS features a quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with an NPU for AI-powered photo management, 4GB RAM, 2.5GbE and GbE networking ports, two hot-swappable 3.5-inch SATA bay, and a few USB ports. It looks to be an update to the Rockchip RK3566-powered QNAP TS-133/TS-223 with more memory (4GB vs 2GB) and more advanced networking capability (2.5GbE+GbE vs GbE only), while still keeping the object and face recognition capabilities. QNAP TS-216G specifications: SoC – Unnamed but likely Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 clocked at up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Mali-G52 Neural Processing Unit (NPU) Hardware-accelerated Transcoding Encryption Engine System Memory – 4 GB RAM Storage 4 GB eMMC flash (dual boot OS protection) 2x 3.5-inch SATA III bay also supporting 2.5-inch SATA SSDs; hot-swappable Networking 2.5GbE RJ45 jack Gigabit Ethernet jack Wake-on-LAN (WoL) and Jumbo Frame support Number of Concurrent Connections (CIFS) – Up to 200 USB […]

April 16, 2024April 16, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 44 Comments

ODROID-H4 – A Compact Alder Lake N-Series SBC with up to dual 2.5GbE and four SATA III ports

Hardkernel has just launched an upgrade to their ODROID-H3/H3+ Jasper Lake SBC, with the ODROID-H4, ODROID-H4+, and ODROID-H4 Ultra boards powered by Intel Processor N97 or Intel Core i3-N305 Alder Lake N-Series processors. The ODROID-H4 family supports up to 48GB DDR5-4800 memory and NVMe SSD storage, comes with up to two 2.5GbE, four SATA III ports, three 4K capable video output ports (HDMI and DisplayPort), a range of USB ports, and a 24-pin GPIO header. ODROID-H4 specifications compared to previous generation ODROID-H2+ and ODROID-H3 boards. The GPIO header offers the following interfaces for all models except for the ODROID-H2+: 2x I2C, 3x USB 2.0, 1x UART, 1x HDMI-CEC, ext. power button. The H2+ header has similar interfaces, but only one USB 2.0 and two UART. Some may note the maximum RAM capacity numbers differ from the data on Intel Ark, but the latter is not usually correct, and Hardkernel have […]

April 11, 2024April 16, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

LattePanda Mu is an x86 Compute Module based on Intel Processor N100 CPU

The LattePanda Mu is a compute module/system-on-module based on the popular Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor that can run Windows or Linux and aims to provide a more powerful solution than the Raspberry Pi 5 and upcoming Raspberry Pi CM5 (Compute Module 5). The LattePanda Mu does not follow any SoM standard and instead comes in a custom 69.6 x 60mm form factor using a 260-pin SO-DIMM edge connector. The module is equipped with 8GB RAM and 64GB eMMC flash by default, and the interfaces exposed through the edge connector (PCIe, USB, Ethernet, HDMI…) make it suitable for a range of applications such as IoT, robotics, digital signage, and edge computing through custom carrier boards. LattePanda Mu specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – […]

April 6, 2024 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

CWWK NAS mini-ITX motherboard features six SATA connectors, three 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports

In our last post, we wrote about the CWWK X86-P1 which is a fanless SBC and mini PC that goes for $101 and up, but while writing another product that got my attention was the CWWK NAS motherboard which is built around the Intel Celeron J Series SoC and features six SATA connectors and three 2.5GbE network ports, two of which are connected to Intel i226-V controllers and the other one to a Realtek RTL8125BG controller. The board also has support for dual 2280 M.2 NVMe SSDs and DDR4 memory. Other than that, it has HDMI, DisplayPort, USB 2.0, 3.0, PCIe, and audio output ports. The board follows the mini-ITX form factor, and previously, we have written about many different boards with the same form factor, such as the Sapphire Edge+ VPR-4616-MB, ASRock Industrial Boards, Kontron K3931-N, and many others. Feel free to check those out if you are interested […]

March 21, 2024March 21, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Radxa Penta SATA HAT adds up to five SATA drives to the Raspberry Pi 5 for NAS applications

The Radxa Penta SATA HAT leverages the PCIe interface on Raspberry Pi 5 SBC to add up to five 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA drives through four SATA connectors and an eSATA connector and enables NAS designs with the latest SBC from Raspberry Pi Limited. The Radxa’s Penta SATA HAT was initially launched in 2019 as an accessory for the Rock Pi 4 SBC powered by a Rockchip RK3399 processor and an M.2 PCIe socket since Raspberry Pi competitors have been exposing PCIe interfaces for years. It turns out the exact same Penta SATA HAT design can be reused with the Raspberry Pi 5 by providing a new PCIe FPC cable and updating the configuration scripts. Radxa Penta SATA HAT for Raspberry Pi 5 specifications: 4x SATA interfaces + 1x eSATAp for up 100TB storage via 5x 2.5″ or 3.5″ HDD/SSD Host Connection – Flat cable with 2-lane PCIe 2.1 via […]