Back from the Dead!

[ThinkPad]

Happy New Year!

The JTAG is Good,
But OMFG! What is the point to develop such adapter when there are tons of cheap HDD Cases/Enclosures for 2.5 inch drives ?

In terms of accessory Please! focus on something useful, like small USB camera with flash,
or a docking station/port replicator of some sort.

 

[comradekingu]

Because it is native S-ATA.

UVC USB cameras, and docking stations, exist en masse.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

Any updates on a formal push to pay the rest of our Pyras off. I want to finish it up and have a receipt that says "paid for in full" instead of constantly checking back for updates!

 

[ThinkPad]

Because it is native S-ATA

Basically, what this adapter is gonna do, is the same as every 2.5 inch HDD case already do...

Class C video USB cameras and docking stations exist en masse.

Could you Please provide me a link to a small USB camera with LED or Xenon flash ?
Or a docking station/port replicator that can replicate all the Pyra ports including the one for the external power ?

 

[TrashyMG]

Basically, what this adapter is gonna do, is the same as every 2.5 inch HDD case already do...

Except there is no USB involved, the SoC literally has real SATA... it's not a USB to SATA interface. The OMAP5 doesn't have a host USB 3.0 port, How the Pyra is implementing SATA is that it's using the 4 extra pins in a USB 3.0 port and carrying the true SATA power and data pines out. This Adapter is just a breakout board essentially.

If the SoC is ever updated it can use that USB 3.0 port if the SoC supports it. Right now it's a USB 2.0 port with SATA.
[doublepost=1483756243,1483755625][/doublepost]@EvilDragon , I almost think it may be wise to put a sticker over that port that says "This isn't a USB 3.0 port, see manual for details."..

 

[ThinkPad]

The OMAP5 doesn't have a host USB 3.0 port,

From the Pyra frontpage:
"It features one USB 3.0 OTG port"

So can I use the USB OTG port to connect my 2.5 inch hdd case or not ?

 

[TrashyMG]

From the Pyra frontpage:
"It features one USB 3.0 OTG port"

So can I use the USB OTG port to connect my 2.5 inch hdd case or not ?

OTG is not a HOST port. And USB 3.0 doesn't transfer at SATA speeds.

 

[ThinkPad]

OTG is not a HOST port.

So the Pyra "USB 3.0 OTG port"

Is not:

Because a Certified USB On The Go port can act as USB Host...

 

[TrashyMG]

It CAN, sure with adapters... but it's not SATA nor does it have the speed of SATA.

This adapter is allowing us to take advatage of the SATA features built on the SoC, how hard is it to see this as a benefit vs leaving it out of the design.

 

[levi]

Edit: ninjaed by Trashy somewhat, but I'll leave this here anyway.
-----

I think there's some crossed wires going on here; an OTG port acts as a client port if you plug directly into it, or you can plug an adaptor in that turns it into a host port. If you have a USB3 hard disc, then you can plug it into an adaptor that you plug into the OTG port. And that would be the fastest way of connecting that hard disc.

But if you have a USB caddy, then even faster would be to take the drive out and hook it up using the SATA adaptor from the first post. But that would probably need more wires and some sort of power adaptor, so USB may still be more convenient.

 

[TrashyMG]

Convenient for sure, but dismissing the SATA feature completely is dumb.

 

[ThinkPad]

"It CAN, sure with adapters... but it's not SATA nor does it have the speed of SATA."

Trashy,
No adapters are needed dude,
Only a cable with male micro USB 3.0 is needed and the 2.5 inch HDD enclosure will work fine, on 3.0 speeds with the 3.0 OTG Port of the Pyra.

USB 3.0 - up to 5Gbits
SATA 3 - up to 6Gbits

So Yeah... Sadly for me this SATA adapter was waste of development time.

 

[TrashyMG]

USB 3.0 - up to 5Gbits
SATA 3 - up to 6Gbits

USB 3.0 has never remotely lived up to those speeds.

Also the SoC has the feature why not use it, why can't we have both, what if I want to plug in my USB 3.0 drive and a SATA drive and use the PYRA to quickly transfer something... why can't we have options, you're just being dismissive.

So Yeah... Sadly for me this SATA adapter was waste of development time.

To me it's not wasted development as it's pretty much a passive adapter, it didn't require much design.

 

[levi]

Trashy,
No adapters are needed dude,
Only a cable with male micro USB 3.0 is needed and the 2.5 inch HDD enclosure will work fine, on 3.0 speeds with the 3.0 OTG Port of the Pyra.

That's not the way I understand it, I'm afraid, at least if USB3 OTG ports are anything like the USB2 OTG port on my Pandora. You'll need an adaptor to plug anything into a OTG port - without an adaptor the OTG port acts as a port that lets you plug the Pyra into other devices. Most OTG host adaptors I've seen give you a full sized A-type socket, so you'd need a cable with a male type-A plug on it, like you probably already have for other purposes, as well as the host adaptor cable.

 

[ThinkPad]

Well unfortunately the OMAP 5432 supports SATA 2 only, not SATA 3,
Which is even more sad.
This makes the file transfer through the 3.0 OTG port the fastest option at least on paper.

SATA2 - up to 3Gb/s
USB 3.0 - up to 5Gb/s

It will be nice if someone with EVM test the "real life" speeds.

 

[TrashyMG]

Well unfortunately the OMAP 5432 supports SATA 2 only, not SATA 3,
Which is even more sad.
This makes the file transfer through the 3.0 OTG port the fastest option at least on paper.

SATA2 - up to 3Gb/s
USB 3.0 - up to 5Gb/s

It will be nice if someone with EVM test the "real life" speeds.

well I have an EVM, but I suppose my data wouldn't be good enough, not to mention I do not have a USB 3.0 storage device. but it still doesn't change the fact we have SATA why not take advantage of it. It's essentially free and it doesn't use up any of the USB ports.

 

[Inimuk]

Well unfortunately the OMAP 5432 supports SATA 2 only, not SATA 3,
Which is even more sad.
This makes the file transfer through the 3.0 OTG port the fastest option at least on paper.

SATA2 - up to 3Gb/s
USB 3.0 - up to 5Gb/s

It will be nice if someone with EVM test the "real life" speeds.

Ubuntu Mate copied at USB 2.0 speeds:

At 3.0 speeds:

Random Windows Image over USB 3.0:

Granted, this is using Windows and I have little doubt on actual speed, considering I couldn't hit PrtSc fast enough to capture these while doing 3.0 transfers of +1.3GB each. This was performed on a Lenovo Miix 700 series with an internal Samsung SSD, to a USB 3.0 enclosure using both USB 2.0 and separate test using 3.0. The enclosure was a Vantec Nexstar 6G USB 3.0 enclosure with a Crucial MX200 drive. This is while tablet is powered by battery.

 

[Lightkey]

I liked the last tweet from both Thinkpad and TrashyMG because they are both right.
What Thinkpad is missing (besides that work on this happens in parallel and isn't taking away time from Pyra development) is that two high-speed ports are simply better than one. Copying stuff to or from a HDD is actually one of the main uses I have even for my Pandora, believe it or not, but that is USB 2 speed at best. Without the S-ATA adaptor, I would either copy from the USB 3 OTG to the USB 3 port but only at USB 2 speed or need a USB 3 hub and still only get half the speed of USB 3 at best on the Pyra because it would use the same lines for reading and writing. I happen to already own an external HDD with USB 2 and eSATA connectors, why waste the potential?

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Wow that's a clean desktop. I don't see any male-to-male porn or something related :O.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

Well unfortunately the OMAP 5432 supports SATA 2 only, not SATA 3,
Which is even more sad.
This makes the file transfer through the 3.0 OTG port the fastest option at least on paper.

Note that the USB protocol has a lot of overhead and brings in even more overhead and latency due to the simple fact that a controller has to do a protocol conversion, now add in the whole lot of issues that may cause USB 3.x to not even reach its max speed. I've had some bad experience with larger copy operations over USB as well, there are a lot of crappy controllers out there. Additionally, I'm not sure how it'll work out in this case, but with the Pandora the USB host controller is a mayor power drain, making sure that it is deactivated by default was one of the first things I've done because it pretty much doubled its runtime.