ZERO 3E - no eMMC - what a pity!?

What a pity, there is no eMMC storage option!?

Wish there was 1GB RAM/4GB eMMC option on this. Would be able use 100’s of these for our IoT requirements.

Zero3WE I think stands for emmc Zero3W without…
Starts at $20 for the 8gb https://shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/rock-3/products/copy-of-radxa-zero-3w?variant=47222880928060
I made a mistake as usually not too bothered about eMMC but thinking further I could write video until death on SD but always have the system on the eMMC and ordered 1/2gb without emmc Doh!

Ah hadn’t seen those https://linuxgizmos.com/radxa-previews-zero-3e-single-board-computer-with-gbe-port/
Now I get you as no mention of eMMC but guess no room.
PS they also called it a TF card which was the same is that something new and there is a new TF card?

We’ve tried very hard to pack everything into such a small size so eMMC and uSD had to drop one. We dropped eMMC for maker friendly, but let’s see if we have a change to drop the uSD card and make eMMC only version.

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That would be awesome!!

In our current design based on the RockPi S, we had to add RTC (only thing missing).
In my opinion, RockPI S is one of your best designs, with the 26x2 pins!!

If you can also look into the possibility of an RTC - then 3E is a ready to market product for IoT applications!

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Actually no as I was thinking of the very strong CCTV focus of the SOC where you can record local to SD and basically you keep recording until to you destroy the card and replace.
The system is on eMMC totally seperate from local storage where only detected scenes are sent to NVR so really SD is just a huge buffer so you can prefix detection events with video.

For me there is very little difference with modern SD & eMMC as with repetive writes but are prone to failure and the difference between both is less than some seem to think.
The failures with Tesla has been due to eMMC write failure.

Then when you add the utilties available from logging in zram, read only root partitions to https://github.com/ecdye/zram-config loading root into an overlayfs where the top write layer is zram and it merges down on shutdown is write once on shutdown with no dataloss and much less restrictions.

You can run some state of art detection models on a Zero3w and storing both local and remote NVR increases security so both sd & emmc are required but otherwise no preference.

Likely for me I am more likely to add a 1gbe ethernet/hub USB adapter to the Zero3W with eMMC.

PS there is a great multi function device for the Pi.


Which is really just a usb ethernet on the end of a poe splitter and not sure why more products like this exist especially a 1gbe one?
Likely I will use as 100Mbs is still ok and just have an adapter

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005005887413067.html

I would also like eMMC version, but maybe there is a way to connect those two together? There were raspi keys, as well as micro-sd to eMMC adapters but the questions remains the same: can we get eMMC trough mSD slot without sacrificing speed?

BTW: is there anything about POE hat for this board? So far there is only one small note about it specs that POE is supported but requiring right HAT. I guess it’s something different than for regular boards, ot only because poe port missing.

@dominik I have been arguing that Zero due to the pin mux and not being exactly the same format, means its more of a brand name for reduced port budget models.

Currently if you look there is no room left for eMMC or any POE breakout pins, its likely impossible to get anything more on the current zero format.
I guess they could keep the current mounting hole posiitions and extend the pcb left as Zero is only a brand name and the gpio and x4 mount mounts are still in the same place and accomodate eMMC.

Having an adaptor on Sd would likely be pointless as its not capable of UHS speeds that even a Pi5 can read. Thing is eMMC wear levelling is not as good as some thing as its fairly simple and eMMC is not as robust as some seem to think. Nowadays the difference between moden SD & eMMC has become quite small.
If you want to do it that way you can https://shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/rock-pi-4-accessories/products/emmc-to-usd-board-for-rock-pi-4

Also when POE products exist that are a fraction of hat prices it begs a question of why?

Likely I will just use the Rock3w with the above PoE to Micro-USB Adapter from PiHut and get eMMC, ethernet & Wifi + BT.
@jack You can power via both USB ports? As a 1gbe usb3.0 of the above would be nice.

I would love to see a RK3568 with 1gbe, emmc sort of similar shape to a usb nvme adaptor board with m.2 on the rear, that is zero format with an extended pcb as for me that would be very cool.
I did just order a https://arace.tech/products/radxa-rock-3b as will make a great NAS board, but a Zero version would be great.

There is only small note about supported poe via additional hat in official webpage (on specs), I expect that it should be designed for this particular board, not being too big, somehow matching rest, and of course it’s not anything universal as You linked (it’s also not a HAT).
As we noticed there is also no poe pins on board, but maybe there is something else? Some pads for pogo? I don’t know, but just curious how this will work, of course if info from official specs are correct.

I can’t agree that uSD and eMMC are equal in speed. HS400 eMMC easily reach about 270MB/s, uhs-1 sd is about 105MB/s, some cards reach bit more with exotic extensions, but it’s still this area. Also some durability is the question for uSD. Maybe with uhs-2 they can compete? BTW I got this emmc adapter as well as raspi-keys and all of those are just problematic, not working on most readers and very very slow on others. Once I got blazing fast 5MB/s :wink: on the other hand I would be happy to use such thing with full speed of eMMC :slight_smile:

No there are no pads or pogos for the board I am looking at unless there is a revision on the way.
So yeah how does POE work without the 4 pin breakout… ?

My 2 pet raves at the moment are F-ing 40 pin gpio and no compatible hats :slight_smile: Can we stop the stupidity and just having stacking boards connected by cables that work with all!!! See even the mention of it has me chewing more valium.

Yeah I got a Sd->eMMC convertor from radxa and found similar and purchased the usb-eMMC adapter on which works perfectly.

Its effective speed on what is a quadcore A55 as the bottleneck is often the CPU and apart from boot and even that very minimal.
But I am not arguing for 1 or the other I am arguing for both as I am looking at both as recently started to see a clear advantage to removable media for video recording or even logs that you can write till destroyed and simply replace whilst the system remains on low write eMMC and can last for many years…
PS zooming into the Pics the eMMC is newer stock and not those original quite slow ones Radxa had.
Even then though as said A55 quad especially in the context of POE where as a device its likely all running from ram…
Effectively there isn’t that much difference and having removable replaceable storage in something as cheap and as handy as SD in that small form factor, so for me there isn’t much in the eMMC vs SD.
When you have both though and the best of both worlds which is what I am advocating, you have some extremely flexable design options.

The Zero3e is not that interesting to me as it has no eMMC, POE, WiFi or BT. If it was swapped for eMMC then I lose removable replaceable storage and is still no better for very minimal effective gains.

If Radxa did a stackable wired POE hat which is basically that product I spammed minus plastic case then it would fit on any product as near all have the x2 mounting points near the GPIO and it could be choice to fit on top or bottom as its connected via a cable and its not blocking a heatsink and roasting your cpu.

I do have a Zero3W and I am really liking it and it would be exceptional to have a POE 1Gbe stackable board (not hat!) :slight_smile: as also I can not get the 100mbs POE micro usb as seems sold out everywhere…

I don’t know and I’m curious about that.
We know what is HAT and what is not :smiley: Take a look at official info for 3E:

Same thing in tech sheet so there have to be something for that.
Also google for rock 3e and You will get titles like “Radxa introduced new zero size board with ethernet port and POE support”. This just took some attention. Ethernet port is something new in this for factor, POE is first thing that many asks when they already spend extra money to wire up several things.

Your attached POE gadget is something universal. It should work with everything if there is enough poe budget. But it’s not HAT, it also has it own ethernet port so marking like on picture is misleading. Waveshare have some very small poe hats, so it does not need to be huge. There are also some small Ethernet hats for raspberry pi (and that seems to be good idea).
Hopefully radxa team can answer how they solved those and how this hat will work. :slight_smile:

Completely right about storage options. We just used to sd + something and rather that something may be missing. Recently eMMC become much chapear and now You can get 256G for about $15, this should be reflected in board prices including those with soldered eMMC. So far it’s true for orange pi and friendly elec (but not for radxa) :wink:

POE is a mystery because it needs the 4 pin breakout to feed a POE hat that I guess we both have not found.
I even wondered if gpio had been used but looking at gpio all pins are connected apart from pin 26…

Its a mystery of how it could be possible and I guess at one point we will find out…

I have seen 64gb for $15 and think Radxa have.
The 1gb with 8gb Emmc +$5
2gb with 16gb + $10
4gb with 32gb + $15
8gb with 64gb + $20
A tad more than the Opi modules on ebay but not that much, but haven’t seen a 256gb for about $15

Exactly :slight_smile:

This has started with orange pi 5+ where You could add it for about $15 with board, also friendlyelec shows nanopc-t6 with 256G eMMC (soldered) on board for $20 (still You can do that on their page). Few days ago I just make an order for 6 of those bundled with usb-c cable (which I don’t need that much). Initial price was $23 with free shipping including taxes, but after adding some codes it dropped to something like $16. They just left HK and I should have them soon. Hopefully they did not include potato instead of them :wink:
I just assume that prices for bigger eMMC modules are getting better. Year ago max was 128G and priced in 3 digits. Hopefully we will see that in sbcs :slight_smile:

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Yeah that was one of the reasons that closed the gap between sd and eMMC but as prices drop eMMC edges ahead.
I still think both is best as I can bind mount to SD eMMC write dirs and on fail it will continue with the eMMC dirs instead of volatile utils such as log2ram.
I had a look at the t6 and yeah your right 256gb eMMC is only +$20 dollar, but the bottom option is free if you wish to include a ‘No Thankyou’!

While nanopc-t6 has eMMC soldered orange pi 5+ has option for external module for same capacity and price. It was an option with orange pi board, but as You can see I was able to buy them separately. Hopefully speed will be ok :slight_smile:

Chris from EC summarized SBC clients as some groups. There were those focused on DYI projects and others who just see small computers. Some will then want to get as much flexibility and others rather focus on speed and durability. I think we would have much more fair comparison with uhs-ii. Until now eMMC prices were important factor. With new rockchips we will have small storage level up UFS :slight_smile:

I think there are different levls and many different purposes especially when soldered on.
Rock5 removable all SD, eMMC, NVME I currently have a Rock5b with x6 1tb in a raid5 with 1 as hot spare.
That is very likely a different usage and profile than most.
The small Zero3 with a very good cpu unusual inclusion of a npu even though 1 tops but a fairly average GPU is likely different to the Zero or Zero3 Pro with better Gpu’s.
eMMC is soldered on so an implementer can use various wear avoidance schemes such as log2ram but when coupled with SD much wear aka logs can be shifted to SD whilst still retaining perf.
That is very likely a different usage and profile than most.
The Zero & Zero pro which likely the emulator and desktop people might enjoy same again a different usage and profile than most.

I think the best place for the Zero3 is as an edge device, likely will be used for other purposes, but at its price for function its a brilliant edge device.
Hence if wired ethernet then POE is even better especially moving from consumer to commercial where wired ethernet and local PSU might be a no-no.
I think as like the ‘not a hat’ what is actually the difference if it does the same function that having a well designed usb 1gbe POE ethernet to add-on to a Rock3w gives best of all worlds and a lot of flexability of choice whilst Radxa doesn’t need an encyclopedic stock list so hopefully economies of sale can be even cheaper…

There is a bit of pretention about what is a SBC as they are just computers of all scale now as essentially the whole Mac lineup is a SBC and the defintion is currently soldered on ram that is different to what you might call a motherboard…

ZERO 3E has introduced a very innovative way to support PoE, we can see this will be copied by others in soon future.

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If the ZERO 3E is done well, it can be used in lot of places instead of ESP32/STM 32 where the LAN has to be added via SPI. The 3E would be much better option running full Linux!!

Sounds great, when new HAT will be available? Will support POE+ on larger boards?

The Radxa Zero 3E is up for order on Arace Tech website for those interested. No idea when its shipping or when it will be available from the other distributors…?

Yeah they are a great price, prefer the W with the eMMC but still waiting for the images to be updates as only the Debian Desktop fully boots.

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