Radxa Penta SATA HAT with 5B/B+

[wonderlust]

Hey guys this is my first post here so be polite please.

I want to build a mini NAS for home use but the Radxa Penta SATA HAT does not officially support Rock 5B/B+. Perhaps the main issue is the form factor but at the same time I don’t understand how hard would be to create a longer cable or a longer M.2 board. Was anyone able to make it work?

My other option is to use M.2 to 6 SATAs and another PCB for PSU which will be a nasty cable work that I’m not a fan of.

Also I cannot find anything about the Radxa Penta SATA HAT IPEX cable as IPEX is mostly used for antennas and has nothing to do with PCIe. Another thing I cannot find info about is the FPC cable they use in 5C/Pi 5.

Am I crazy enough to make my own flex cable?

[dominik]

The problem with Penta Sata kit is not only about board size but also power characteristics. This worked great on less demanding boards with less components and SoC that don’t need that much power. At this moment there is no combination that can work with this HAT at full speed and have fast SoC + 2.5G ethernet (mainly with any RK3588).
The best choice for me is to connect it with Rock 3A + 2.5G A+E ethernet card. This works perfectly at full HAT speed, but SoC itself is significantly slower than RK3588.

For now 5B+ and m.2 ASM1166 card is good option. You can fit two such card - both will work at full speed. 10G ethernet adapter is nice option too.

Here is schematic for penta sata hat: https://dl.radxa.com/penta/hw/radxa-penta-SCH_201909161.pdf
Before You will try that get Rock 4 series variant (m.2) and any 4x m.2 extender. Bottom part will be a mess but You will find out if everything else works.

[wonderlust]

So if I understood correctly you’re saying that this HAT wont be able to power the 5B+ on the 5V rail? Was this tested before? What if you power both main pcb and the HAT? I’ve already found a way to extend the I-PEX cable.

About the 5B+ with m.2 ASM1166 card(there is also a radxa one i’m not sure which one is better), I wont be able to plug the SSD directly in it because of the lack of space so I’ll have to use multiple SATA cables and another PSU to power them. Do you have any suggestions for a PSU that can power all the disks and the main board at the same time or will I have the same case with the HAT?

I was able to find this “pico psu”. But the 5V looks a bit suspicious and I’m not sure how can i power the 5B+ from it. Also it says 200W which sounds impossible to me. If you have any other suggestions in mind? I need something compact and tidy.

Also thank you for the quick answer and for being so active in the forum I also saw some other posts of yours. Really appreciate it!

[dominik]

So if I understood correctly you’re saying that this HAT wont be able to power the 5B+ on the 5V rail?

I did not tested this particular thing, but I’m quite sure there will be issue here.
I could power Rock4 with almost any my ac adapters including those for cellphones, most of them don’t work reliably with 5 series, especially with added m.2 cards. 5B is just bigger and will need much more energy than smaller models.

What if you power both main pcb and the HAT?

This is not recommended (and there is big warning to not do that) but some pi5 users were not aware of this and … nothing happened. Maybe they were just lucky or pi5 has some kind of protection (pi4 was never protected at gpio side). I would not try that on Rock 5B/+ for sure

About the 5B+ with m.2 ASM1166 card(there is also a radxa one i’m not sure which one is better),

Those are almost same cards, same chip, almost same design. Cheap alternatives comes with no support and no warranty, most dont’t have ASPM support.

I wont be able to plug the SSD directly in it because of the lack of space so I’ll have to use multiple SATA cables and another PSU to power them. Do you have any suggestions for a PSU that can power all the disks and the main board at the same time or will I have the same case with the HAT?

Describe first how much and what drives You need, 3.5 inch require 12V rail, 2.5 almost for sure need 5V only.
You can power sbc with dumb 12V, You can easily add step down converter for 5V. Pico PSU is such converter that is designed with 12V on input and atx power supply on other side. It’s big and complicated plug that You don’t need.

Take a look at this guy:

This takes 12V on input and produce sata 5+12V on other end. Inside there is step down converter for 5V, of course 12V is just wired into input. If You plan to use 2.5inch ssd, then whole 12V cabling is probably not needed. Then something like this can be used:

(not exactly from usb but from step down converter).

Also You can think about some kind of backplane, those usually cost few bucks and looks like this:

this one is for 2.5 inch sata/sas drives.
You will find the one that suits You, some have custom power plugs, some comes with molex or sata ports. Usually they come with mini sas connectors (You’ll need reverse cable), some with sata plugs.

Once You will get this idea, You will start looking for whole cages with drive trays ie: this

Or the one with mini sas:

LSI 8i works here, You will need pcie port (yet again with 12V), but as a bonus You will get hardware RAID, all led indicators, support for SAS and much more power consumption (ASM1166 is 2-3W, LSI card is 12W).

so finally You need to revisit all that stuff. There is no compact, power efficient and super simple setup. If You plan 10G networking then check out my thread about Rock 5B with PLX pcie switch. If You plan to keep it as small as possible then just ASM1166 and step down converter.

[wonderlust]

Ok, I like your ideas. My main goal is to use it as a backup so I was going to use Seagate Basic Portable 4TB 2.5 USB 3.0 STJL4000400 portable drives because they cost half as much. 80 euros per drive where I live. I dont like the idea for phantom powering the drives because this means that If I shutdown the main board there still will be power to the drives.
So I found this guy + pcie to 6xSATA + SAS backplate:

I will lose the other M.2 m slot but if thats the cost for less cables I’m ok with that.
Perhaps in the future I’ll upgrade to two m.2 ssd’s when they get dirt cheap.
I’m ok with the 2.5 gigabits for the needs.
When it comes to the enclosure I would like to create my own one and 3D print it. Perhaps if it looks as good as in my head maybe share it with the community.

At the end of the day If none of the options don’t work out I will just get the 5C and the SATA HAT and bow my head in shame.(Still gonna work on a cool enclosure though)

[wonderlust]

I guess if I do it this way I’m losing two M.2 slots and the only benefit left from the 5B+ compared to the 5C are the faster memory and 2.5 gigabits which easily can be achieved with a USB card. I’m starting to vow for the easier setup although It’s a very hard choice.

[dominik]

Ok, I like your ideas. My main goal is to use it as a backup so I was going to use Seagate Basic Portable 4TB 2.5 USB 3.0 STJL4000400 portable drives because they cost half as much. 80 euros per drive where I live.

I think I have one such drve (5TB variant), It’s 5V only and rather slow (110MB/s),
therefore You need less complicated cabling and it will not limit Your bandwidth, even with single lane configuration.

I dont like the idea for phantom powering the drives because this means that If I shutdown the main board there still will be power to the drives.

This is nothing unusual, all 3.5 inch usb enclosures wire power directly to sata power port and drive will not come to life until sata link is active. I never seen modern drive that spin with no link and power consumption is almost zero. No worries about this.

So I found this guy + pcie to 6xSATA + SAS backplate:

This makes sense with sata/sas controller. 4 pin connector is not output, it’s input for pcie slot (many cards require 5+12V). So still You need power source and You will end up with something like ASM1166 (6x sata).

I will lose the other M.2 m slot but if thats the cost for less cables I’m ok with that.

Why lose? For what board?

I’m ok with the 2.5 gigabits for the needs.

2.5G is easily available with RK3588 (5B, 5B+, 5T) and RK3568 (3A, 3B).

When it comes to the enclosure I would like to create my own one and 3D print it. Perhaps if it looks as good as in my head maybe share it with the community.

No worries, this usually is custom made thing. Pay double attention to good cooling system.

At the end of the day If none of the options don’t work out I will just get the 5C and the SATA HAT and bow my head in shame.(Still gonna work on a cool enclosure though)

5C is rather easy option, all should work like with pi5 (but limited to half pcie bandwidth) and it has 1G ethernet.

I guess if I do it this way I’m losing two M.2 slots and the only benefit left from the 5B+ compared to the 5C are the faster memory and 2.5 gigabits which easily can be achieved with a USB card. I’m starting to vow for the easier setup although It’s a very hard choice.

Not only 2.5Gbit and two m.2 slots, but also all those are 9x slower at pcie compared to RK3588.
Penta sata hat is capable of 2x pcie 3.0, same as ASM1166, 5C has 1x pcie 2.1 (25% of bandwidth).
5B has 4x pcie 3.0 + 1x pcie 2.1 (and there is cheap option to convert bottom m2 to 2+2/3.0)
5B+/5T has 2+2 pcie 3.0.

Your drive uses 110MB/s, all five will reach speed of one fast ssd (550MB/s) and this is about 1x pcie 2.0.
Gigabit ethernet will limit transfer to 125MB/s. 2.5G is less than 300MB/s.
USB ethernet is some option, You can also get 5Gbit ethernet dongles. USB is not that stable connection in long term.
Rock 5T has 2x 2.5G ethernet port.

[wonderlust]

Thank you so much for your help! I love when people like you stay active on forums and help.

Off topic: Hope I can visit Poland this year, big fan of your country and also to fire lord Ozai ;d

[proton17]

I recently built a NAS system based on 5B+ using the SATA card mentioned above (m.2 ASM1166). To power it with 4 drives I used Pico PSU (from aliexpress) and a 120w power adapter off Amazon. I did have to DIY wires for toggle button, and to create a USB-C pigtail to power the board, but it works great.

Pictures attached.

NOTE: The sata card on the pic is SATA w/ SAS style out, but I didn’t end up using it, and simply used the card with 6 sata ports (ASM1166).

Also pictured is a custom 5B+ to ITX adapter that I used to mount board inside a NAS case (JONSBO N1). I still have few of those adapters here https://www.ebay.com/itm/256762059150

[dominik]

NOTE: The sata card on the pic is SATA w/ SAS style out, but I didn’t end up using it, and simply used the card with 6 sata ports (ASM1166).

I think nothing else than ASM1166 is reasonable in this format. I would love to get m.2 with ASM1166 and mini sas port (or card dedicated to Rock 5B+/5T - with double ASM1166 and three mini sas connectors). Such double ASM1166 could make new penta drive kit, with 12 drives it would be dodeca-sata adapter Or just tri sas

BTW: You have so much space that passive cooling with larger heatsink would be nice option.