I’ve had a banana Pi M1 for ages in my cupboard and have recently found a purpose for it as a local NAS for a family member to store all their photos. I have installed the latest Armbian OS and Samba and attached a 1Tb 2.5@ hard drive. I aim to put this in a plastic box with an external 5v regulated power supply with a barrel connector and then wire the connector to the board using a very short right angle micro USB. A few questions:
- If I wire the hard drive SATA power plug directly to the barrel connector rather than the 2 pin plug on the board will this reduce the power required via the micro USB feeding the board. I am aware this power connection has its limitations.
- The only board connections available externally will be the ethernet connection and USB ports. I want an external power switch. What is the best way to achieve this? Solder directly to the contacts on the switch itself (which looks rather difficult) or can I use a any of the GPIO pins to turn the board on? Many thanks