Opi (PC) - power handling, (usb) disks

vlaho

Being new to this community, first I would like to extend my greetings to all members and visitors,
and special thanks to Jernej for his great work - this is really something extraordinary.


Maybe I can help others to avoid  hours of frustration by sharing my experience with opi:


if you are attaching anything (to usb ports) more than wireless keyboard receiver to opi
(like usb wifi adataptor, usb disk, usb DVB-T) than  using POWERED usb hub can save you a lot of time:
- even if you are using only one of listed aditional devices - it will save lot of had-to-table banging
about what is wrong now - why is it not working (any more) - what went wrong;
opi can withstand some power drawing thru usb, but after some time it starts choking power to attached
devices more and more, and as result things do not work as they did first 5 minutes;


Speaking of usb disk(s) ie. sata disks in usb enclosures - I find it is far more practical and cost effective solution
than buying opi board w. sata connector; Why ?  Because arm boards like opi, bannana, etc. that have sata
connectors do not have sata controllers attached to system bus like 'normal' computers,
but usb-sata bridge chips (pretty slow) attached to same usb chip as other usb ports, ethernert ...
So there is no speed gain using sata connector - so I see no sense  spending 15-20 US$ more on board w. sata connector,
when very decent 2.5" usb disk enclosure is less than 5 US$;
And using combination boot from card - chroot to usb disk  (opi can not boot from disk anyways) in my experience works quite ok.


Just my thaughts
Regards to all