Booting from SSD/SATA

Don’t care about what he said, maybe He have other purposes,But he took a wrong way.

I collected the results of countless hours of testing where it belongs to: in the community wiki: http://linux-sunxi.org/USB/UAS#OK

As a side note: I would suspect A83T’s USB implementation to be the same as H3’s so if you would care about your users and keep in mind that linux-sunxi community might get mainline kernel support for A83T working in the future choosing an UASP capable USB-to-SATA bridge would be the best choice since both sequential transfer speeds improve and especially random IO will get faster with mainline kernel.

Again: Why did you choose the slowest USB-to-SATA bridge in the world? There must be a reason why you chose exactly the worst option possible? Do you develop the hardware you sell? Or why can’t you tell why you chose inferior components?

for some user need this function on BPI-M3, it can support they function , if you not need ,just not use it. so easy.

These SoCs have 3 USB ports. One OTG, one host port and one HSIC. So they clearly lack bandwidth compared to all your other boards. So why did you chose to limit IO bandwidth even more? You do not use the one USB host port at all but connect the HSIC port to an internal USB hub and behind this hub is both the slow SATA bridge and the 2 externally available USB ports. This way performance will further decrease when bandwidth intensive USB peripherals are used.

Why not doing it like Cubietech on their H8 design (using both host and HSIC port and choosing a more intelligent USB hub)? Can you spot the difference between your and their USB solution?

Unfortunately they use the same slow GL830 SATA bridge but at least it has not to share bandwidth with other USB ports.

BTW: Neither you nor the famous @sinovoip support muppet had a look at the question this thread started with. Don’t you think providing documentation containing some advices like ‘install to eMMC if possible since…’ would be a good idea since you chose to never answer support questions here in this channel?

we are try to write documents on gitbook. and know how to install image to SD card or eMMC flash

not good ,but user can reference

maybe we need waitting for a H8 hardware, when it achieve, you can understand why @tkaiser always not like us.:slight_smile:

I didn’t choose H8 last year due to only support Android 4.4 but Android 5.x~6.0. For M3 SW will be improved, I don’t suggest H8 onboard, we must focus on M3 SW development. Org developers got M3 samples, they will help us too, don’t worry!

Nora

i just mean an other H8 board, not do by us. this is why…

One final word from me. If you would care about your customers and given the poorly designed USB situation on BPi M3 (you waste one USB host port completely for no reason – see how Cubietech does it better above) I would strongly recommend to document for your customers that the Micro USB OTG port can be used almost identical as an USB host port now that you fixed the fex configuration for this port after customers complained over half a year while you weren’t listening to them).

Performance of the OTG port in host mode is almost as good as with a native USB host port. See my test results here (H3 and A83T perform identical on the OTG port, on the type A receptacles and on the SATA port it’s a different story since you f*cked up your board design here so badly choosing to waste one USB port and this slow USB-to-SATA bridge)

It should also be possible to use BPi M3 as an USB gadget device through the USB OTG port but I would assume the same small patch is necessary as outlined here for H3 BSP kernel: http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1417-testers-wanted-g-ether-driver-h3-device-as-ethernet-dongle/

Apart from that @sinovoip is really doing a great job publicly outlining what to expect from your company. And it should be noted that at least here in Europe BPi M3 customers all believe M3 would be a powerful upgrade compared to M1, that it has a real SATA port since every reseller lists exactly that and that over 95 percent of devices are just collecting dust in the meantime and all those people will never buy from you again since they can’t do anything useful with this board and feel they got duped (they paid the extra price for a reason since they thought they get a beefy board capable of doing a great job as server or desktop replacement. No one is dumb enough to buy M3 to be used for GPIO stuff since it’s way too expensive for that)

But from your perspective as product manager it’s better to ignore all of this of course :slight_smile:

maybe we need waitting a H8 board ,all spec is same as you think. you know what i mean.:slight_smile:

Not all customers need SATA functons, our robot team needs M3 powerful GPU for video processing. Don’t waste time to discuss SATA on mobile SOC series, since we choose Allwinner SOC, we will face non SATA fate.

Nora

Yeah, thx for confirming that it’s absolutely useless to talk to you. I was talking about a not so well known feature that is not related to SATA (I did not even mention the word ‘SATA’ at all): Using the USB OTG port to compensate from your poor USB design on the M3.

My only hope is that potential customers first check the forums to get the idea what to expect from a vendor like you. :slight_smile:

@sinovoip: And of course you still have not the slightest idea what’s going on and think I would hate you personally? Could be funny if it’s not that sad that you’re involved in development, documentation and support. A person not able to think from a user’s perspective at all :frowning:

we not any limited for you account , at first ,you say many times delete your account, up to now you at here ,why you alway hit youself face???

you even not our client, you get free sample . it is lionwang send to you. You should be grateful for and help us.

You are a very special purpose. send you a word "别搬起石头砸自己的脚“

Hi Nora,

What TK would like to point out is, that the A83T comes with 3x USB links, but you just use 2x of them. These are the 3 USB links: 1x OTG, 1x Host port 1x HSIC.

CubieBoard5 (H8) Since the only USB 2.0 host is connected to the SATA bridge chip, the board has a SMSC USB3053 USB 2.0 HSIC hub chip, providing 2x Type-A USB host ports on the board. This USB3053 chip is controlled via I2C. Linux mainline kernel provides a driver (“usb3053”) for it. 1x OTG MicroUSB

M3 In opposite to CubieBoard5, the M3s hardware design does not make use of all USB connections offered by the SoC (A83T). The HSIC port is connected to the Terminus Technology Inc. 4-Port USB hub. On this hub is attached the USB-to-SATA bridge and the 2 available USB Type-A ports. Therefore these 3 connectors have to share the bandwidth of a single USB2.0 connection. 1x OTG MicroUSB

This is a design flaw and should be changed with the next batch, like you did with the Power-Jack :+1:. As it gets so hot it would be good to deliver next batch with a big heat-sink.

Dear Tido,

I can understand TK thought, he insists 4 x USB ports, he doesn’t care SATA since its speed is slow. But spec is not my own decision, Lion expects customers feedback. I’ll discuss with our team members how to keep 4 x USB port for next project.

Nora

Dear Nora,

Sure, I understand that you work in a team.

The point I wanted to make above is a bit different, the SoC A83T comes with 3x USB links, namely: 1x OTG 1x HSIC 1x Host port


On the M3 you make only use of: 1x OTG = MicroUSB for OTG connection :+1: 1x HSIC = connected to the Terminus Technology Inc. 4-Port USB hub :+1: 1x Host port = is not used :frowning2:

All the data has to go through two (2) USB connections to the A83T instead of using all three (3). This is a bottleneck which can be solved by just changing PCB design :slight_smile:

This is a design flaw and should be changed with the next batch, like you did with the Power-Jack . As it gets so hot it would be good to deliver next batch with a big heat-sink.

Cheers Tido

Quite the opposite. I talked about shared IO bandwidth, why it’s bad to not use an available USB host port and why it’s bad to use the slowest USB-to-SATA bridge when better chipsets exist (see above).

And all you as the responsible Product Manager understand is ‘insists 4 x USB ports’. No more questions.

In order to support developers demand for real SATA, we created a new project - M2 Ultra based on Allwinner R40. Pls find its spec by https://www.gitbook.com/book/bananapi/bpi-m2-ultra/details

Allwinner showed off M2 Ultra at APC 2016 on 8/18 by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcEoAUZZAWw

R40 spec by http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/17/allwinner-r40-quad-core-arm-processor-successor-of-allwinner-a20-supports-sata-gigabit-ethernet/

Nora

m2 Ultra would be pretty cool… Still with the 2gb Ram which helps… My M3 having too many issues with hardware support and tweeking everything is getting to be a pain, power power also was dodgy when I got it…

Will look to see if I can get a cheap one to try it out.

Dear James,

BPI M3 updates images which may solve your problems, its power improvement from micro USB to DCIN connector.

If you need low cost model, M2+/H3 price is cheap.

Nora