Radxa Taco – A Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier board made for NAS with 5x SATA ports

Radxa Taco Raspberry Pi CM4 NAS Carrier Board

The Radxa Taco is a carrier board for Raspberry Pi CM4 and compatible system-on-modules that is designed for NAS applications with five SATA ports for 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives, 2.5GbE and GbE networking, M.2 sockets for expansion, and more. The new board is the successor of the Rock Pi SATA HAT designed for the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC or Raxda Rock Pi 4 single board computers and supports more SATA drives, M.2 NVMe storage, optional WiFi 6, built-in RTC support, and so on. Radxa Taco specifications: Supported SoMs Raspberry Pi CM4 or CM4 Lite Radxa CM3 based on Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor Maybe others Storage 5x SATA interfaces for 2.5-inch HDD or SSD up to 15mm thick, support for 3.5-inch drive via cables, software RAID 0/1/5 1x M.2 M Key 2280  socket for NVMe SSD MicroSD card slot Networking 2.5GbE RJ45 port Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port Optional WiFi 6 […]

Jasper Lake Mini-ITX motherboard comes with 6 SATA 3.0 connectors, 2 M.2 NVMe sockets

Jasper Lake mini-ITX NAS

Topton “N5105/N6005 NAS board” is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by an Intel Celeron N5105 or N6005 Jasper Lake processor, equipped with six SATA 3.0 ports, two M.2 NVMe sockets, and four Intel i226-V 2.5GbE controllers. The board also comes with two SO-DIMM DDR4 slots for up to 64GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort video outputs, and several USB 3.0/2.0 interfaces. As its name implies, it is designed for network access storage (NAS), but I could also see it used as a networked video recorder (NVR), a network appliance, or a multi-purpose machine. Topton “N5105/N6005 NAS board” specifications: SoC (One or the other) Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with 24EU Intel UHD graphics @ 450 / 800 MHz (Turbo); 10W TDP Intel Pentium N6005 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with 32EU Intel UHD graphics @ 450 /  900 MHz (Turbo); […]

Radxa CM5 – A Rockchip RK3588S module (somewhat) compatible with Raspberry Pi CM4

Radxa CM5

Radxa has been working on the ROCK 5 Compute Module (aka Radxa CM5) system-on-module compatible with Raspberry Pi CM4, but based on the more powerful Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC. Just like the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, it comes in a 55 x 40mm form factor, but instead of just two high-density 100-pin board-to-board connectors, the module includes three to cater for the additional I/Os from the Rockchip processor, just like they did for the Radxa CM3 equipped with a Rockchip RK3566 processor. Radxa CM5 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S octa-core processor with 4x Cortex‑A76  cores @ up to 2.4GHz, 4x Cortex‑A55 core @ 1.8GHz Arm Mali-G610 MP4 “Odin” GPU Video decoder – 8Kp60 H.265, VP9, AVS2, 8Kp30 H.264 AVC/MVC, 4Kp60 AV1, 1080p60 MPEG-2/-1, VC-1, VP8 Video encoder – 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder 6 TOPS NPU System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB LPDDR4x‑4224 SDRAM Storage – Optional 8GB, […]

Firefly Station M3 – A Rockchip RK3588S mini PC with up to 16GB RAM

Rockchip RK3588S mini PC

Firefly Station M3 is a mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor, the cost-down version of the RK3588, and equipped with up to 16GB RAM, 128GB eMMC flash storage, support for M.2 SATA and NVMe SSD, 8K capable HDMI and DisplayPort (USB-C) video outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, and more. The new model follows the Station M1 and Station M2 mini PCs with Rockchip RK3328 and RK3566 respectively and will deliver 4 times the CPU performance and up to 8 times the 3D graphics performance compared to the M2 model, but in a slightly larger and about twice as thick enclosure – probably for active cooling – than the first two Station M fanless mini PCs. Firefly Station M3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores, Arm Mali-G610 MP4 quad-core GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL […]

Banana Pi BPI-W3 – An RK3588 SBC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, PCIe x4 slot

Banana Pi BPI-W3

Banana Pi BPI-W3 is yet another upcoming Rockchip RK3588 SBC but with a different set of features, notably the presence of two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a PCIe x4 slot, and a SATA port, besides to more common dual HDMI output, HDMI input, USB 2.0/3.0 ports, etc… The board layout is somewhat similar to the company’s BPI-RK3588 SBC but with a system-on-module, and instead, the Rockchip RK3588 processor is soldered directly onto the board together with 8GB LPDDR4, and 32GB eMMC flash. Banana Pi BPI-W3 specifications (preliminary): SoC- Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz (YMMV), 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali G610MC4 GPU, a 6 TOPS NPU, 8K 10-bit decoder, 8K encoder System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, SATA III port Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.1 ports up to 8Kp60 Input – 1x HDMI 2.0 input […]

Mekotronics R58 review – Part 2: Android 12 on Rockchip RK3588 CPU

RK3588 mini PC SATA SSD

I’ve written the first part of Mekotronics R58 review last month with an unboxing, teardown, and first boot with 3D graphics benchmarks. I’ve now had more time to play with Android 12 on the Rockchp RK3588 mini PC, so I’ll report my experience with the device. User interface and settings As already mentioned, the box ships with Android 12 for TV and the stock launcher. The Google Play store is working, and I had no troubles installing all apps I needed for the review. Most of the settings are pretty much standard. While the first time, I used Ethernet, and also tried WiFi 6 connecting the R58 to Xiaomi Mi AX6000 router. It worked but not without some effort, as initially, all I got were messages like “Couldn’t find SSID” both with 2.4GHz and 5GHz SSIDs. It turned out I had to disconnect the Ethernet to make WiFi work, and […]

Firefly ITX-3568JQ – A Mini-ITX motherboard with Rockchip RK3568 CPU

Rockchip RK3568 mini-ITX motherboard

Firefly ITX3588J mini-ITX motherboard with Rockchip RK3588 SoC now has a little sister/brother based on Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor called ITX-3568JQ, and designed to power Arm PCs, cloud terminals, industrial controllers, edge computers, advanced NVR, NAS devices, and more. The motherboard supports up to 8GB RAM, 128GB eMMC flash, offers SATA storage, dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6, optional 4G or 5G cellular connectivity, can handle up to three independent displays, and offers plenty of I/O options including an RS232/RS485 DB9 connector and a PCIe slot. Firefly ITX-3568JQ specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568J quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G52-2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1, 1.0 TOPS NPU, 8MP ISP, 4Kp60 video decoding, 1080p60 H.265/H.264 video encoding System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4 Storage 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC flash 16MB SPI flash 1x […]

Mixtile reveals U.2 to PCIe/SATA breakout board for Rockchip RK3588 cluster

Mixtile Blade 3 cluster: boards connection

Mixtile Blade 3 is a Rockchip RK3588 SBC with up to 32GB RAM designed for server applications, notably to build clusters through a U.2 edge connector with 4-lane PCIe Gen3, SATA 3.0 to interconnect multiple boards. What was not clear so far is how multiple boards would be connected, as we were just shown two boards connected by a U.2 cable, which does not scale, and does not provide power as the 12V input also comes with the U.2 connector. The company has now provided more details showing how it’s done, namely through a breakout board that connects to the U.2 edge connector, and allows cluster design as shown below. The U.2 breakout board comes with a 6-pin connector 12V power, pair of SFF-8643 (mini SAS) connectors for PCIe daisy-chaining, and a SATA port. Since short SFF-8643 cables are hard to find, Mixtile will provide custom 15-cm cables with the […]