ROCK 3B ideas and discussion

[DIYprojectz]

@stuartiannaylor

No you can not as the pcie lanes are already used with the 1st so all bandwidth is taken even if you could find a m.2 splitter as there is a single pcie3.0 x2 .
Or go to all the expense of a splitter and pcie bifurcation to get 0.5 x bandwidth whilst a single on board would mean x6 @ full speed.
It was just a bad choice of format and i/o for that SoC if you look at alternative devices built on that SoC that are almost all either router or nas devices.

We are talking about Rock 3B, right?

@hipboi

After reviewing all your discussion and targeting 3B as a general purpose SBC, here is our final decision:

• PCIe 3.0 x2 on the bottom for m.2 M key
• M.2 B key for PCIe 2.1(muxed with SATA), USIM and USB, support both 4G and 5G cards, as well as 2242 SATA SSD(need to test)
• SDIO WiFi/BT will be on board, WiFi 6/BT 5
• remove the SATA 7P connector, since we are a compact SBC, the 2.5inch SSD is not good with enclosures, if you want to use 2.5 inch SSD, we can provide a M.2 B key to SATA breakout board

@stuartiannaylor JMB585 will indeed occupy lower m.2 m key slot with PCIe 3.0 x2, but you still have PCIe 2.1 x1 muxed with SATA in upper m.2 b key slot, and can choose to use either. How is it bad? You can just put this without any adapters in upper slot, instead of messing with A E card you linked. Or a 4-port Marvell controller, again without riser or adapter. And again, for single SATA you can use this.