sata News - Page 8 of 27 - CNX Software

July 6, 2022July 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

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

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 […]

June 18, 2022June 18, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

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 […]

May 9, 2022May 9, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

$95 Banana Pi BPI-R2 Pro 5-port Gigabit Ethernet router board is powered by Rockchip RK3568 SoC

Banana Pi BPI-R2 Pro is an update to the Banana Pi BPI R2 router board that replaces MediaTek MT7623A quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with a much more powerful Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor. The Banana Pi BPI-R2 Pro board looks very similar to the first generation R2 board with the same dimensions, 2GB RAM, HDMI & DSI display interfaces, five Gigabit Ethernet ports, one SATA port, two USB 3.0 ports, and one mPCIe socket, but it also adds one M.2 socket, support for MIPI CSI cameras, and extra storage with a 16GB eMMC flash. Banana Pi BPI-R2 Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0 GHz with Mali-G52 GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 (option for 4GB) Storage – Onboard 16GB eMMC Flash (option for 32 and 64GB), MicroSD card slot, 1x SATA III port, SPI flash for network boot Networking 5x Gigabit Ethernet […]

April 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

QNAP TS-133 1-bay NAS leverages Rockchip RK3566 AI capabilities for object and face recognition

We’ve seen several hardware devices based on Rockchip RK3566 AIoT SoC that do not make use of the key features of the processor. But QNAP TS-133 1-bay NAS is different, since it relies on the native SATA and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces for network storage, and the built-in NPU is leveraged to accelerate object and face recognition by up to 6 times. The NAS comes with 2GB of RAM, 4GB of storage for QTS 5.0 Linux operating system, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, and the company promotes it as a “personal private cloud & home multimedia center”. QNAP TS-133 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU/AI accelerator System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage 4GB eMMC flash (Dual boot OS protection) 1x SATA 3.0 bay for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDD or SSD Networking Gigabit Ethernet R45 port with Wake-on-LAN […]

March 5, 2022July 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 48 Comments

Firefly is working on a Rockchip RK3588 Mini-ITX motherboard (ITX3588J)

After Radxa ROCK5 Pico-ITX SBC and Banana Pi RK3588 SoM and devkit, Firefly ITX3588J mini-ITX motherboard is the third hardware platform we’ve seen with Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor. The board will be interesting to people wanting an Arm PC or workstation as the mini-ITX form factor will allow the board to be fitted to a standard enclosure, and there’s plenty of resources and I/Os with up to 32GB RAM, four SATA ports, multiple 8K/4K video outputs and inputs, dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and more. Firefly ITX3588J mini-ITX motherboard specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with four Arm Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, four Arm Cortex-A55 cores, ArmMali-G610 MP4 quad-core GPU with support for OpenGL ES3.2, OpenCL 2.2, Vulkan1.1, 6 TOPS NPU, 48MP ISP, 8Kp60 video decoding, 8Kp30 video encoding System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB […]

January 3, 2022March 2, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Beelink Expand F USB-C dock takes M.2 SSD and 2.5-inch SATA drive

Beelink has previously introduced USB docks with the Expand X smartphone dock and Expand M with an SSD. The company’s latest Beelink Expand F USB-C dock looks really like a mini PC from the outside with the usual USB, HDMI, Ethernet, and audio ports, and it can also be fitted with an M.2 2280 SATA SSD and/or a 2.5-inch SATA drive. It can be useful to add PC-like connectivity to a smartphone or add additional storage to a laptop without cluttering your desk with multiple USB drives, and/or potentially saving some USB ports on the host machine. Beelink Expand F specifications: Storage Options No storage, i.e. bring your own SATA drive(s) via M.2 socket up to 440 MB/s and/or 2.5-inch SATA bay 512GB SATA III M.2 SSD 512GB SATA III M.2 SSD plus 1TB SATA HDD Video Output – 2x HDMI ports up to 4K resolution Audio – 3.5mm audio […]

December 28, 2021December 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Phased out Raspberry PI CM4 quad SATA carrier board becomes open-source hardware

Wiretrustee carrier board for Raspberry Pi CM4 was unveiled about one year ago with four SATA connectors to help people build their own 4-bay NAS. Unfortunately, the company decided to discontinue the project due to the semiconductors market situation. The good news is the board is now open-source hardware with all resources shared publicly including the Allegro schematics and PCB layout, Gerber files, 3D models for the heatsink, and case designs for 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives. All files are available under “CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 – Permissive”. Here’s a quick reminder about the Wiretrustee board specifications: Supported SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and 4 Lite Storage 4x SATA 2.0 via Marvell 88SE9215 (PCIe 2.0 x1 to 4 6Gb/s SATA ports, no HW RAID) MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 Networking – 1x Gigabit Ethernet port USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports […]

December 16, 2021December 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 60 Comments

Rockchip RK3588 datasheet available, SBC’s coming soon

We had most Rockchip RK3588 specifications so far for the long-awaited Cortex-A76/Cortex-A55 processor, but at today’s Rockchip Developer Conference 2021, more information surfaces with impressive CPU and GPU benchmarks, and the Rockchip RK3588 datasheet has just dropped from the sky directly into my laptop, as such document usually does. At least two single board computers are expected to soon follow from Radxa and Pine64. Rockchip RK3588 datasheet Since we have the datasheet, we can confirm some of the specifications of RK3588, and get additional details: CPU – 4x Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.4/2.6 GHz and 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz in dynamIQ configuration GPU Arm Mali-G610 MP4 “Odin” GPU with support for OpenGLES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2, OpenCL up to 2.2 and Vulkan1.2 2D graphics engine up to 8192×8192 source, 4096×4096 destination AI Accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU 3.0 (Neural Processing Unit) VPU Video decoding 8Kp60 H.265, VP9, AVS2, […]