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Libre “Renegade” SSD Booting Guide

Published: October 14, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 31 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, Libre SBCs, Storage

Libre Computers "Renegade" SSD Boot Guide

The “Renegade” by Libre Computers is a $50 single board computer. You actually get USB 3.0 with the “Renegade” which is going to make it even more worth it to use a SSD with than the “Le Potato”.

This method requires a sacrificial SD card to serve as the bootloader. After booting though it will use your SSD for the system’s root filesystem. We will then benchmark it to measure the improvement/gains.

In this guide I’ll walk you through the process. Let’s get started!

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Libre Computers ROC-RK3328-CC “Renegade” SBC Review

Published: October 14, 2022 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 16 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, Libre SBCs, Reviews

Libre Computers "Renegade" ROC-RK3328-CC Firefly Review

Recently I reviewed the Libre Computers “Le Potato” and I really like it. Libre Computers offers very up to date images (and takes pride in it) and the build quality on the board was rock solid. I also like that it is actually widely available to order for only $40.

I’m very excited that today I received the “Renegade” ROC-RK3328-CC Firefly board from Libre Computers which is available for only $50. One very interesting feature this board has that the “Le Potato” doesn’t is a USB 3.0 port. Since I love writing USB booting guides for all my single board computers having a USB 3.0 port means that the “Renegade” has the potential to hit much higher I/O performance scores using USB 3.0.

Will the “Renegade” live up to the high expectations set by the “Le Potato”? Let’s find out!

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Banana Pi M2 Zero SBC Review

Published: October 10, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / Leave a Comment / Benchmarking, Hardware, Reviews

The Banana Pi M2 Zero definitely has a very familiar form factor. It looks just like the Raspberry Pi Zero but is a much cheaper alternative in these market conditions. Would you actually want to buy and use it as a Pi alternative? The answer is maybe.

Today I’ll explain the strengths and weaknesses of the Banana Pi M2 Zero and explain who may be able to save a lot of money using a board like this (and who should stay away from it). There are definitely some things you should know about the board before buying one and we’ll be covering those in this review.

Let’s get started!

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Libre “Le Potato” SSD Boot Guide

Published: October 6, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 16 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, Libre SBCs, Storage

The “Le Potato” by Libre Computers is a $40 single board computer. That is incredibly cheap in 2022 as anyone who has tried to buy a Raspberry Pi recently can tell you. There aren’t a lot of guides out there for how to best utilize it though so today I’d like to publish a guide for it for one of the best upgrades you can do with any SBC: upgrade to SSD storage!

Let’s begin!

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ODROID XU4/XU4Q SSD Booting Guide

Published: October 5, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 27 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, ODROID, Storage

The ODROID XU4 and XU4Q can be a bit more tricky to boot from USB drives such as a SSD due to them not using the fantastic Petitboot bootloader like many of their newer boards have. It is still completely achievable though using an old trick and a sacrificial SD card.

The performance gains as well as access to much higher capacity drives can makes it more than worth it to set up SSD storage (as it is on nearly all single board computers).

Let’s get started!

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Libre Computers “Le Potato” SBC Review

Published: October 5, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 2 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, Libre SBCs, Reviews

The “Le Potato” single board computer available from Libre Computers is an alternative to the Raspberry Pi. It is modeled after the Raspberry Pi 3 and is largely compatible with the Raspberry Pi 3 and it’s accessories (with some limitations/caveats). It can even run Raspberry Pi OS / Raspbian.

It costs about 1/3rd of what a Raspberry Pi does while coming with 2GB of memory. It’s widely available as well (I got mine from Amazon Prime with overnight delivery). Today we’ll be taking a look at the “Le Potato” as well as benchmarking it to see how well it can perform.

Let’s get started!

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Tinker Board SSD / USB Booting Guide

Published: October 4, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 27 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, Storage, Tinker Board

I recently wrote a getting started guide for the Tinker Board as even though the newer models tend to be quite expensive the older models can often be found for a lot cheaper. In this guide we are going to do something more advanced and are going to actually move our root filesystem to a SSD!

I have the original variant (the Tinker Board 1 S) and that is what I will be using for this guide but this should work on all Tinker Boards (including models without the eMMC). The Tinker Board 2 will have faster performance as the USB ports are USB 3.0 vs. USB 2.0 on the original Tinker Board. If you don’t have the S model with the eMMC this method will require a sacrificial SD card to serve as the bootloader.

This is an old method that I first covered for the Raspberry Pi before it supported native USB booting. I’ve also covered it here for the Orange Pi Zero 2. The SD card/eMMC serves as the bootloader but our root filesystem will be on the SSD. This is a fantastic method for any board that doesn’t natively support booting the OS from a USB storage device.

Let’s begin!

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Orange Pi Zero 2 USB SSD Boot Guide

Published: August 30, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 43 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, Orange Pi, Storage

During my recent coverage of SBCs I’ve been benchmarking them using SSDs. The process for booting from a SSD varies across different boards. I’ve found the documentation for some of these to be lacking / nonexistent and the Orange Pi Zero 2 is one of these.

Today I wanted to benchmark the Orange Pi Zero 2 with the SSD and given the lack of documentation I’m going to document my process for setting it up. The Orange Pi Zero 2 will require a sacrificial SD card to bootstrap the process and has USB 2.0 ports. With those limitations in mind let’s set it up and see how it performs!

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ODROID XU4Q Review / eMMC Tests

Published: August 24, 2022 / Last Modified: March 15, 2023 / 2 Comments / Benchmarking, Hardware, ODROID, Reviews

I recently received several ODROID products I wanted to review and benchmark in my quest to explore the rest of the SBC world outside of Raspberry Pi. Today we’re going to cover the ODROID XU4Q!

We’ll cover the pros and cons of the board and then benchmark the board with a official Hardkernel eMMC module. Let’s get started!

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Hardkernel ODROID eMMC Guide / Performance Benchmarking

Published: August 23, 2022 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / Leave a Comment / Benchmarking, Hardware, ODROID, Storage

I’ve covered eMMC modules on the site before as being a fantastic performance option. Today I received some Hardkernel eMMC modules that I wanted to do some performance testing to see how they perform as well as a guide for how to get started with them.

These are promised to be ready to go out of the box. I will test that claim and then we will do some performance benchmarking. No matter what happens we will also do a fresh reimage of the module to show the complete process of getting them set up. Let’s begin!

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