Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
SD cards make absolutely awful hard drives, no matter how fast they are rated. And USB 2.0 is also an incredibly slow method for accessing hard drives of any sort.
So you end up with a fantastic processor with great potential but a horrible user experience because the fast processor is hobbled by stupidly slow storage.
I just don't understand why board developers keep doing this over and over and over again??
(01-08-2016, 12:54 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
SD cards make absolutely awful hard drives, no matter how fast they are rated. And USB 2.0 is also an incredibly slow method for accessing hard drives of any sort.
So you end up with a fantastic processor with great potential but a horrible user experience because the fast processor is hobbled by stupidly slow storage.
I just don't understand why board developers keep doing this over and over and over again??
...presumably because these boards aren't meant to be drop in PC replacements, but intended for IoT applications or dedicated machines for particular sets of tasks and so aren't geared towards that design principle??? Locally accessed files are generally assumed to be multimedia, which don't need fast access; all other content is generally assumed to come from network resources / cloud / internet, and so *that* is where attention is focused instead.
These are not intended to be high end production ready components for third party commercial supercomputer development and rendering farms; these are cheap fun hobbyist playgrounds or DIY alternative components for far more expensive systems like computing clusters. Once the OS and/or app components are loaded into RAM they're generally expected to stay there unless explicitly given the boot, and so the longer load time is thus considered an acceptable trade off in terms of power consumption, components, heat, etc - optimization for rapid task, app and data switching is for full PCs or more specialized (ie, expensive) hardware.
This is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market, so it can't be utterly crazy pants. I would suggest it's your expectations that are out of sync here, not the product; you are looking for apples in the oranges bin at the grocery.
(01-08-2016, 01:15 AM)samandiriel Wrote: (01-08-2016, 12:54 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
SD cards make absolutely awful hard drives, no matter how fast they are rated. And USB 2.0 is also an incredibly slow method for accessing hard drives of any sort.
So you end up with a fantastic processor with great potential but a horrible user experience because the fast processor is hobbled by stupidly slow storage.
I just don't understand why board developers keep doing this over and over and over again??
...presumably because these boards aren't meant to be drop in PC replacements, but intended for IoT applications or dedicated machines for particular sets of tasks and so aren't geared towards that design principle??? Locally accessed files are generally assumed to be multimedia, which don't need fast access; all other content is generally assumed to come from network resources / cloud / internet, and so *that* is where attention is focused instead.
These are not intended to be high end production ready components for third party commercial supercomputer development and rendering farms; these are cheap fun hobbyist playgrounds or DIY alternative components for far more expensive systems like computing clusters. Once the OS and/or app components are loaded into RAM they're generally expected to stay there unless explicitly given the boot, and so the longer load time is thus considered an acceptable trade off in terms of power consumption, components, heat, etc - optimization for rapid task, app and data switching is for full PCs or more specialized (ie, expensive) hardware.
This is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market, so it can't be utterly crazy pants. I would suggest it's your expectations that are out of sync here, not the product; you are looking for apples in the oranges bin at the grocery.
Ummm, have you even read the kickstarter campaign?
"PINE A64 is not only a computer, it is a super affordable 64-bit high performance expandable single board computer (SBC). Whether you are an IT professional, electronics hobbyist, student, teacher, hacker, inventor, or just someone who wants to have more flexibility to increase their productivity at work, the PINE A64 is a computer board made for everyone. Enjoy more fun and entertainment at home with endless possibilities."
And as far as your assertion that "this is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market".... also dead wrong. Most phones and tablets run their OS from an eMMC module, not an SD card.
So maybe my expectations are not only sane, but completely in-sync with the way the creators have positioned their product.
(01-08-2016, 02:13 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: (01-08-2016, 01:15 AM)samandiriel Wrote: (01-08-2016, 12:54 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
SD cards make absolutely awful hard drives, no matter how fast they are rated. And USB 2.0 is also an incredibly slow method for accessing hard drives of any sort.
So you end up with a fantastic processor with great potential but a horrible user experience because the fast processor is hobbled by stupidly slow storage.
I just don't understand why board developers keep doing this over and over and over again??
...presumably because these boards aren't meant to be drop in PC replacements, but intended for IoT applications or dedicated machines for particular sets of tasks and so aren't geared towards that design principle??? Locally accessed files are generally assumed to be multimedia, which don't need fast access; all other content is generally assumed to come from network resources / cloud / internet, and so *that* is where attention is focused instead.
These are not intended to be high end production ready components for third party commercial supercomputer development and rendering farms; these are cheap fun hobbyist playgrounds or DIY alternative components for far more expensive systems like computing clusters. Once the OS and/or app components are loaded into RAM they're generally expected to stay there unless explicitly given the boot, and so the longer load time is thus considered an acceptable trade off in terms of power consumption, components, heat, etc - optimization for rapid task, app and data switching is for full PCs or more specialized (ie, expensive) hardware.
This is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market, so it can't be utterly crazy pants. I would suggest it's your expectations that are out of sync here, not the product; you are looking for apples in the oranges bin at the grocery.
Ummm, have you even read the kickstarter campaign?
"PINE A64 is not only a computer, it is a super affordable 64-bit high performance expandable single board computer (SBC). Whether you are an IT professional, electronics hobbyist, student, teacher, hacker, inventor, or just someone who wants to have more flexibility to increase their productivity at work, the PINE A64 is a computer board made for everyone. Enjoy more fun and entertainment at home with endless possibilities."
And as far as your assertion that "this is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market".... also dead wrong. Most phones and tablets run their OS from an eMMC module, not an SD card.
So maybe my expectations are not only sane, but completely in-sync with the way the creators have positioned their product.
[shrug] Enjoy your disappointment then; it's obviously your expectations that are correct and the product that's at fault.
(01-08-2016, 02:40 AM)samandiriel Wrote: (01-08-2016, 02:13 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: (01-08-2016, 01:15 AM)samandiriel Wrote: (01-08-2016, 12:54 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
SD cards make absolutely awful hard drives, no matter how fast they are rated. And USB 2.0 is also an incredibly slow method for accessing hard drives of any sort.
So you end up with a fantastic processor with great potential but a horrible user experience because the fast processor is hobbled by stupidly slow storage.
I just don't understand why board developers keep doing this over and over and over again??
...presumably because these boards aren't meant to be drop in PC replacements, but intended for IoT applications or dedicated machines for particular sets of tasks and so aren't geared towards that design principle??? Locally accessed files are generally assumed to be multimedia, which don't need fast access; all other content is generally assumed to come from network resources / cloud / internet, and so *that* is where attention is focused instead.
These are not intended to be high end production ready components for third party commercial supercomputer development and rendering farms; these are cheap fun hobbyist playgrounds or DIY alternative components for far more expensive systems like computing clusters. Once the OS and/or app components are loaded into RAM they're generally expected to stay there unless explicitly given the boot, and so the longer load time is thus considered an acceptable trade off in terms of power consumption, components, heat, etc - optimization for rapid task, app and data switching is for full PCs or more specialized (ie, expensive) hardware.
This is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market, so it can't be utterly crazy pants. I would suggest it's your expectations that are out of sync here, not the product; you are looking for apples in the oranges bin at the grocery.
Ummm, have you even read the kickstarter campaign?
"PINE A64 is not only a computer, it is a super affordable 64-bit high performance expandable single board computer (SBC). Whether you are an IT professional, electronics hobbyist, student, teacher, hacker, inventor, or just someone who wants to have more flexibility to increase their productivity at work, the PINE A64 is a computer board made for everyone. Enjoy more fun and entertainment at home with endless possibilities."
And as far as your assertion that "this is the exact model that drives the entire cell phone and tablet market".... also dead wrong. Most phones and tablets run their OS from an eMMC module, not an SD card.
So maybe my expectations are not only sane, but completely in-sync with the way the creators have positioned their product.
[shrug] Enjoy your disappointment then; it's obviously your expectations that are correct and the product that's at fault.
And I wish you the best of luck playing your games on this "spiffy little guy" when the very best you can ever hope to get from any storage is 20-30MBs and HORRIBLE seek times. I look forward to reading your complaints about how poor the performance is!
And before giving me another smart-arse response, why don't you do a little research around some of the very many other development boards out there, and the universal issues people have with poor performing SD cards, corrupted data, poor performing USB 2.0 connections etc.
(01-08-2016, 12:54 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
The A64 used on the board lacks I/O capabilities. It's that simple and that's the reason why the board is cheap.
There is one USB host port and one USB OTG port (not a full replacement for a host port), there's SDIO for SD card and there's eMMC that's not useable here since pins are already muxed for different purposes.
The good news: http://linux-sunxi.org/USB/UAS (when mainline kernel support will be ready sometimes in the future. According to linux-sunxi devs the A64 seems like a H3 with less USB ports and ARMv8 cores otherwise identical)
(01-08-2016, 08:40 AM)joe Wrote: A64 Support 128GB ----> It can Use SDHC and SDXC Read High Speed Not only support 20-30MB Can Read 4K media speed , just is your SD cards poor !
Does that mean that you've access to one of the Pine64 developer samples and already tested the real-world SD card performance?
01-08-2016, 10:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-23-2016, 10:44 AM by joe.)
(01-08-2016, 10:03 AM)Andrew2 Wrote: (01-08-2016, 08:40 AM)joe Wrote: A64 Support 128GB ----> It can Use SDHC and SDXC Read High Speed Not only support 20-30MB Can Read 4K media speed , just is your SD cards poor !
Does that mean that you've access to one of the Pine64 developer samples and already tested the real-world SD card performance?
No , i am not pine64 developer , i only is user .
.
01-08-2016, 03:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-08-2016, 03:55 PM by baylf2000.)
Sorry, but that's complete nonsense. The board supports those card sizes. That doesn't mean it runs them at their maximum speed. The speed limitation lies in the way these cheap arm boards implement the SD card interface.
Getting anything greater than about 25MB/s from an SD card requires implementing the specialised UHS I/II standards, and I have never seen an arm dev board do this. I have more than twenty boards on my desk including several very recent releases, and NONE of them implement the special UHS standards.
I'm told that the UHS standards require specialised clock rates, voltages and some specialised proprietary/licensed IP that is not publicly available, hence it's lack of availability in cheap arm socs.
(01-08-2016, 07:02 AM)Andrew2 Wrote: (01-08-2016, 12:54 AM)baylf2000 Wrote: Please tell me this isn't yet ANOTHER potentially brilliant ARM board that has been horribly disabled by the incredible short sightedness of it's developers in not including some kind of fast storage.
The A64 used on the board lacks I/O capabilities. It's that simple and that's the reason why the board is cheap.
There is one USB host port and one USB OTG port (not a full replacement for a host port), there's SDIO for SD card and there's eMMC that's not useable here since pins are already muxed for different purposes.
The good news: http://linux-sunxi.org/USB/UAS (when mainline kernel support will be ready sometimes in the future. According to linux-sunxi devs the A64 seems like a H3 with less USB ports and ARMv8 cores otherwise identical)
Yes, and that's where I see the problem. The pins meant for high-speed storage have instead been devoted to an excessive number of GPIO pins that 99% of the people who buy this board will never, ever use.
The kickstarter supporters of this board will read all the marketing hype from the creators about using it as some kind of GUI capable mini-computer, and they'll be HORRIBLY disappointed, just as anyone has who has tried to use any of these otherwise capable development boards in that way.
This is not being marketed as an industrial control board, so why do you need dozens of GPIO ports? It is being marketed as a small, cheap "super computer", but no board that relies on a ridiculously slow SD card interface for storage will ever be acceptably usable in that way.
Even with USB 2.0 speed, nothing will stop you from using a small SSD...
It wont be BLAZING fast, but will be more than enough for this board.
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