Hello everyone, I would like to ask if the M2.B interface supports other types of adapter cards, such as SATA adapter cards.
Rock 5B+ M.2 B Key connector support SATA Expansion Card？
Yes, it works.
It’s same chip that is used in penta sata hat,
Cards based on ASM1166 (with upgraded fw) are bit better, 6xsata and support for power efficiency.
I can’t thank you enough
Does anyone know if an m.2 B key sata ssd (not nvme) will work in the 5B+ B key slot? I plugged a couple of different capacities in and neither were recognized with an lsbk command. Is there something in rsetup that needs to be enabled or some tweak with rkDevtool or OS?
I know it’s highly unlikely to be able to boot, I’m trying to find some way to separate docker files, backups, etc from the nvme drives and avoid the uSDcard and the external USB connectors. My use case is to have a transportable server in my pocket so anything exposed could get damaged and rendered non-op.
I’ve designed/printed a case to providide external protection for theuSD card, but the USB is still hanging in the wind.
Since the 5B+ has zero emmc (still not shipping I think) using the B key would work - even if it’s slow. I have a couple of different converter boards on order, one to plug a usb drive and one for a full size SDCard. They seem to be built to replace the wifi card. But a simple sata M2 card would be a more elegant solution if I could get it recognized. I think that Sata, USB and SD cards are a bit longer lasting than a uSD card.
Have You tried to turn on sata dtb on it?
It’s not clear from specs but this slot should be wired with one pcie 2.1 line. On older models there was also native sata interface (not m.2) available with m.2 a+e to sata adapter (but since it’s B slot this probably would not work via adapter).
BTW: probably You should be able to add eMMC chip, just find any professional BGA soldering service near You, 256G chip was available for about $20, it comes with all balls ready for soldering so it;s even possible with heating gun. Of course You will void Your warranty, but still this is option.
I did a quick scan wrt BGA soldering. The rate seems to be about $150 in my location. Plus the chip seems to be running at about $40-60. So might as well just get another board - sadly, Radxa don’t have an option available with emmc that is actually available that I can find. As for modifying the dtb, that is something I have no clue how to do. I guess Radxa are focussing all their efforts on the future Rock6 - I think I’d purchase another 5b+ IF it had emmc. I stupidly thought they would all be shipped with emmc since they advertise the soldered chip as an upgrade.
rock 5b+ m.2 ekey, only connected to the usb signal, so does not support pcie to sata adapter plate
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This is not that clear from specs on radxa page, thanks for clarification and please add it there if You can, it’s really important to specify right standard on all slots. This makes life much easier when looking for fitting card.
This is really, really expensive. It’s not rocket science today and probably You can try to do that at home with good heating gun. As I said those eMMC comes with bga balls ready to solder. All You need then is to pre-heat whole board (to about 180-200’C) then place some flux and at the right spot, add eMMC to marks and heat it to about 250’C. You can do everything with non proffesional tools, when solder melts it will drag chip a bit to right place. Don’t blow too much air, it could move something. Nothing plastic near to protect with capton tape.
Of course I don’t suggest You to do that if You have no soldering experiences and manual skils. Today it’s easy to find some devices to practice soldering. If You will have just some intuition and good flux You will be able to do that. eMMC comes with pre soldered balls, which makes the process much easier.
You should choose 5B instead of this board, still have eMMC socket and can have two m.2 sockets as well.
@chenJaly already clarified that it’s usb only slot so it’s not possible 
Okay, I will, but I made a slip of the tongue it was m.2 b key, not m.2 e key as I said
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I installed the SD Card daughter board in the b key slot. The 5B+ immediately sees it as sdb and shows the correct capacity. But of course, now there is another problem. Because the network port is butted up close to the screw post I can’t actually add or remove a card once the adapter is in place. And I can’t fit the SD Card and then mount it since the SDCard covers the mounting post screw. I can probably solve that problem with some 3D printing mods. But, my bet is I can’t boot from sdb anyway, but I does at least solve the problem of having an external usb as a backup device hanging out the back.
I am waiting on delivery of the adapator that takes a straight thumb drive which I expect to work the same as the SDCard, but at least I should be able to mount it easily.
Has Radxa given any thought to either a trade in on 5B+ boards without emmc or some from of discount?
What capacity emmc are you expecting to ship?
I managed to modify my case design so that the adapter card would fit properly. Then the next challenge was finding a way to fit an SD card. well, it turns out that there are short cards and short card adapters made for Macbooks. So I purchased a $5 adapter off of Amazon and fit a microSD. It fits perfectly.
Once I fitted and fired the board up the card is recognized as sda1 with it’s full capacity, in this case 1TB. I formatted, mounted a file system and then did some copy testing. All works as anticipated . Copying is initially very fast as ram gets used as a buffer, then it settles down to usb2 speed - in the range 25-27 MB/s. For me this is fine for static storage/backup.
What I’d be curious to understand is ‘if’ it were possible to boot off the drive, if the slow speed of the usb bus would slow the system down - I don’t know how much of the o/s sits in ram and how much read/write goes on with the boot media. RKDevTool shows sda as a potential boot target but I suspect that Radxa don’t support that.
This is just slow
on 5B You can just add sata adapter and use ssd at about 500MB/s or m2 a+e to B adapter and 2230 nvme, also at about 500MB/s, as You know also there is eMMC slot - easy to add something there.
If You are forced to use internally wired usb to WWAN m.2 then I would just use front blue usb and connect there one of USB->nvme adapters, they easily reach 450MB/s. Even good sd card and reader will get about 100MB/s.
Probably You wanted to fit that inside, but take a look at those tiny 2230 nvme encolsures:
There are also some with usb-c as well as usb-a port already mounted, but they are not that handy and usually problematic to fit.
yeah, as you say, plenty of other faster alternatives. My #1 priority is keeping everything inside. In the reality 2 M.2 connectors provides a huge amount of potential storeage and speed. But I do want to segregate my media and docs from any system stuff.
Ideal scenario is boot from emmc, use the rest of the partition for docker files etc, and have all of my data on the 2 drives. Very little buffering of data for large video files, it seems to take as much data as the (my 2.5g) net can deliver.
But, since emmc is absent I have to come up with a kluge and sacrifice the b key slot which I had intended to use for a 4G model. I do have a small thumb drive hanging off the back for o/s backup and that runs off of usb3.
All will be solved once Radxa actually start to deliver emmc equipped boards and then the ‘upgrade’ they advertise will actually be an upgrade instead of vaporware.
I just wanted to share my personal experience that the slot could be used but space is a limitation due to the network connector. I’ve now got my internal antenna mounted inside the case so wifi performance is pretty good. I also have the fan code installed that another user wrote, so that the fan throttles back when the machine is at idle.
OMV with a cli build of debian is running very well and performance is on a par (maybe even better) than a couple of x86 servers I have - I think the pipe from 2.5g net into M.2 is pretty clean.
You still got printed enclosure, just drill small hole for usb-c cable and stick that case on top of wwan card, should fit here. You can also get rid of plastic case or use even smaller usb-c nvme board:
For 2.5G - You can upgrade to 10Gbit using one of m.2 slots and right cable or 5Gbit with recent usb dongles like AQC111U or RTL8157 based
Soon I hope to get hand on 2x 10Gbit ACQ113 for 5B, hopefully they will work as I expect. My plan is to get 100% of all i/o for that board 