Need Help, Planning to Buy RkPi4C for home personal use. (Mini laptop/NAS)

#1

Hi,

I am planning to buy RockPi4C kit from offical AllCHINANet however as the shipping charges to my home are a bit high for me, I was hoping to get opinion on what I have added to my shopping cart is ok or should I add anything which I missed. My primary intention is to use the 4C as a NAS mostly and sometimes use the operating system to download stuff and maybe watch youtube and small file editing, word processing.

Below is my shopping cart from ALLCHINANET:

  1. 4C board (4GB) without any other option.
  2. eMMC 16GB. (I have spare 16GB sdcard at home so not ordering that. This emmc for faster OS)
  3. USB to eMMC writer. (For cases where i dont have SDCARD or it becomes corrupted, so i can flash things directly to eMMC)
  4. QC3.0 Power adaptor
  5. 3A Type A to C usb cable for powering the board
  6. RTC battery. (For time keeping, although i can keep the board always on. Plus its cheap, so no issue)
  7. 2.4GHz/5.8GHz antenna + pigtail bundle (For this i need help, do i need it or board alone has enough reception power. My router is in the next room, only 1 wall in between)
  8. 4C HeatSink block, the big one which covers the whole base of the board.
  9. Micro HDMI to normal HDMI adaptor. (I have a spare HDMI cable but its has big HDMI plug on both sides so need to convert to mini for 4C)

I will really appreciate your opinions, once I receive the board, i am planning to be more active on this forum to learn how to use the board and what software etc is good or not.

Thanks
Yasir

#2

A couple of suggestions, if you are planning to use NAS on your RockPi4C, you need a better PSU:


Also, for anyone not using an Ethernet connection, I personally recommend getting the RockPi4C with the mounted UFL antenna connector and the 2.4GHz /5 GHz Antenna + Pigtail bundle

#3

Thanks, much appreciated.

Also I’m not planning on some complicated NAS, just one portable external usb drive shared through samba server. Hopefully power requirement won’t be an issue but i will go with your suggestion to get ufl plus antenna.

Secondly , can i go with a small passive heat sink just covering the processor or the big official one which is the size of the whole board.

Lastly, do you recommend getting a large emmc or just 16 gb for operating system and keep all my files in an attached drive?

This is my first time buying an sbc and limited budget so just being careful.

#4

The large official Radxa heatsink is a must, the small heatsink one is simply insufficient, don’t forget RK3399 CPU runs very hot even without overclocking.
A minimum of a 32Gb emmc module is also recommended because all your additional software will run from eMMC and don’t forget ZRAM or swap memory will take a chunk of it too. With a 16Gb eMMC, you will run out of space sooner than expected. I made that mistake too.

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#5

Thanks i am going with large heat sink, 64gb emmc and instead of the pigtail antenna, I’m going with ufl board and pcb antenna hopefully that will also give enough signals. The pigtail antenna bundle is too big.

Lastly for a long time i thought hard wether to wait for pi5 because jack said it’s coming this year but i think it will come late , will take time for software to catch up and drivers to be stable and more so it will be first generation so maybe some things will be problematic. Things might take till 2022 for pi5 to settle down and be usable. When i look at it that way, then i can’t wait 1 more year and this purchase of 4c looks justifiable. Do you agree?

#6

For NAS + light desktop usage, the Rock Pi 4 is sufficient. Only when opening lots of browser tabs does it get limiting. I also think the Pi5 will take time to be usable out of the box for casual users.

Few more suggestions to your list:

  1. NVMe adapter. NVMe drives have gotten cheaper, and offer very good performance for price. Easy way to add lots of storage when you need.
  2. USB serial debug cable. In case the OS is not booting, this comes in very handy to find out whats happening.
  3. Wooden and/or acrylic case. Relatively cheap, helps to protect and add stability to the board and components.

Best of luck and keep us posted!

#7

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

Nvme seems to be the way to go. Someone also suggested nvme drive can help in increasing system zram/swap as its way faster than ssd or mechanical drives.

Instead of serial debug, isn’t it better to get Type A to type A cable for fastboot access/firmware writing?

And i searched but couldn’t find a cheap case for 4c, acrylic one is not compatible with large heat sink and wooden one available at allnetchina is only for 4b .

#8

They have different functions. Boot messages can only be captured via serial console as far as I know.

Ah, thats true.

The standoffs provided with the acrylic case are very useful to elevate the big heatsink bottom for better airflow. Also its a good option for prototyping and testing when you need to remove the eMMC; useful alternative to the big heatsink.

#9

Thanks again.

Can you suggest which OS is most suitable /stable for desktop usage (feature complete, drivers etc) and YouTube watching? I don’t wanna use android, want to use a Linux distro.

#10

Armbian is a good choice for beginners. For stability, try out their Buster desktop image.

Lots of options available here: https://wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/downloads (for 3rd party images goto the project website to download the latest version)

#11

TwisterOS Armbian V1.1
https://twisteros.com/twisterarmbian.html

1 Like
#12

Hi Yasir,

If you’re planning to use NVMe SSD, then you may want to consider this:

But I dont think it will go with any existing chassis though.

My experience with AllCHINANet has been super awesome. Placed order multiple times. Never had any issues. (Love their nicely tight packing)

My recommendation would be Armbian.

Run the command “armbian-config” select “Software”, “Softy” and you should be able to installed them with ease.

Good luck!

ARMBIAN
ARMBIAN.png1140Ă—954 107 KB

#13

Thanks for sharing!

Would be nice to know if any of their (TwisterOS) team members are in this group :slight_smile: