FriendlyElec RK3588 Carrier Board with 4x M.2 3.0x1

FriendlyElec is going to send me a dev sample. So, I will be able to test this board and give more info about how it works.

So, I got the cm3588.

• I only have one nvme stick to test in it currently. I was able to hit about 900 MB/s writing to it.
• The system idles with one nvme at about 5w.
• When shutting the unit down, the kill-a-watt shows 0w.
• The system does recognice M-Key PCI Express to SATA 3.0 6Gbps 5 Ports Adapter (link). I still need to connect some hard drives to test the speed.
• The Friendly OMV image isn't bad. It seems to be based on the Armbian build process. It has omv-extras installed but not flashmemory.

Overall, having a fast cpu, 2.5 GBe networking, up to 16 GB ram, and four nvme slots, it might be one of the best SBC boards I have used. I will post more about it as I do more testing.

Quote from mecoblock

I'm interested in how it would perform with raid 0 for fun, 1 & 5 for practical usage and maybe even raid 10 since it's all done in software.

I am going to try to get five drives setup today. So, I can test those configs.

Some results so far while raid 10 array is rebuilding...

files from single xfs hard drive to ext4 nvme

• large files from xfs HD to ext4 nvme about 100-130MB/s
• rsyncing all files - overall sent 503,939,051,054 bytes received 52,976 bytes 117,536,817.27 bytes/sec
• dd a file

files from nvme to raid 0 array of four WD Red Pro hard drives formatted ext4

• rsync all files from nvme - sent 556,047,825,163 bytes received 579,419 bytes 117,371,694.90 bytes/sec
• dd a file

Will post more when raid 10 is done syncing. So far this board is rock solid. I haven't seen a CPU temp above 39 C.

files from nvme to raid 10 array of four WD Red Pro hard drives formatted ext4

• rsync all files from nvme - sent 556,047,825,163 bytes received 579,107 bytes 109,296,983.64 bytes/sec
• dd a file

files from nvme to raid 5 array of four WD Red Pro hard drives formatted ext4

• rsync all files from nvme - sent 556,048,060,225 bytes received 580,859 bytes 121,900,392.65 bytes/sec
• dd a file

Rsync files in mergerfs pool from my primary server with 10GBe network connection to rsync module on four disk raid 5 array on CM3588 connected via 2.5GBe connection.

sent 9,459,374,653,812 bytes received 324,477 bytes 134,828,637.70 bytes/sec

It might be faster but one of my drives has bad sectors. It might also be faster with no mergerfs involved. I am [/tt]going to try NVMe on primary server to raid 0 pool of three drives on cm3588 using rsync module again.

Rsync files on nvme from my primary server with 10GBe network connection to rsync module on three disk raid 0 array on CM3588 connected via 2.5GBe connection.

sent 2,772,165,189,743 bytes received 1,500 bytes 259,165,632.80 bytes/sec

Quote from Mad_Man_Moon

How simple would it be for me to fork the standard OMV to this board to avoid using the FriendlyELEC image?

What? Why would you have to fork anything? You don't have to use the Friendly Image. Install Armbian and run the install script - https://wiki.omv-extras.org/do…:armbian_bookworm_install

Quote from Mad_Man_Moon

but I prefer such things to be properly open source.

What isn't open source on their image?

Quote from Mad_Man_Moon

Whether there are SATA SSDs with as good reliability as their NVME cousins

Both use wear leveling. I doubt you will see much of a difference in lifespan.

Quote from Mad_Man_Moon

Whether the SATA format has the longevity that said drives will still be viable when ones bought now fail

Sata has been around a long time and isn't going anywhere any time soon. You will be replacing the board before sata is gone.

Quote from mr-september

Was this done off a single PCI-E to SATA adapter?

Yep.

Quote from mr-september

Would this board actually be able to support 4 adapters and like 20 drives? Or, more practically, about 16 drives to not saturate the PCI-E 3x1 too much?

I don't see why not. I only have one adapter to try but I have nvme drives in the other slots.

Quote from mr-september

Also, where were you getting SATA power from?

An ATX power supply with pin 16 and 17 shorted together.

Quote from kapoor

have you tested the different pcie config for utilizing the nvme slots. And what was your experience with zfs. I read in a reddit post that one need to do some workaround to get zfs running,. OMV7 CM3588 ZFS setup I donk know if I recap it right, it must have something todo with with proxmox kernel not available for arm cpu.

I tested with two nvme sticks and one pcie-to-sata adapter (5 ports). I haven't tried zfs on the system. Everything I have tried is in this thread.

The proxmox kernel is not needed. It just helpful on amd64 systems to avoid compiling the zfs module. On ARM boards, you just have to install the kernel headers and zfs-dkms package before installing the plugin. I would also enable backports in omv-extras to get the newer version of zfs.

Quote from andrew-nemtsev

is it any guide to install OMV 7 at CM3588?

Install Debian 7 and run the install script. https://wiki.omv-extras.org/do…:armbian_bookworm_install