official RPi NVMe HAT available

I notice Jeff Geerling damned it with faint praise by saying the rubber
bumper is the best official RPi product of the year ...

256GB NVMe – 40k IOPS (4kB random reads)
70k IOPS (4kB random writes)

512GB NVMe – 50k IOPS (4kB random reads)
90k IOPS (4kB random writes)

read and write numbers transposed?

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On 10/28/24 15:34, Andy Burns wrote:

official RPi NVMe HAT available

I notice Jeff Geerling damned it with faint praise by saying the rubber bumper is the best official RPi product of the year ...

256GB NVMe – 40k IOPS (4kB random reads)
70k IOPS (4kB random writes)

512GB NVMe – 50k IOPS (4kB random reads)
90k IOPS (4kB random writes)

read and write numbers transposed?

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months, I guess I should get
one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a NVMe USB enclosure which
has appalling performance, way worse the USB/SATA.

Does the rPi5 use U-Boot for NVMe. I've had a lot of problems with
U-Boot not recognising NVMe drives on a Orange Pi. The latest Armbian
Boot loader is working, I need to have a look to see if they are using
U-Boot, I'm pretty sure they were in the past.

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On 30/10/2024 08:50, Andy Burns wrote:

Pancho wrote:

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months,

Oh, I don't have a Pi5, and though I kept hearing about 3rd party NVMe
HATs and lack of official one

I guess I should get one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a
NVMe USB enclosure which has appalling performance

Anyway, is it likely the write speeds are faster than the  read speeds?
I know some enterprise SSDs come in "read mostly" or "write mostly"
flavours, but for a Pi?

I can *envisage* a way in which writes are cached in DRAM pending a big
enough chunk to actually erase and write a whole block of data, whilst
reads are happening more or less without caching.


--
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
– Will Durant

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Pancho wrote:

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months,

Oh, I don't have a Pi5, and though I kept hearing about 3rd party NVMe
HATs and lack of official one

I guess I should get
one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a NVMe USB enclosure which
has appalling performance

Anyway, is it likely the write speeds are faster than the read speeds?
I know some enterprise SSDs come in "read mostly" or "write mostly"
flavours, but for a Pi?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 30/10/2024 08:40, Pancho wrote:

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months, I guess I should get
one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a NVMe USB enclosure which
has appalling performance, way worse the USB/SATA.

I prefer the NVMe base boards rather than the hats to keep the top side
clear for fans and GPIO cards.

I've got the Pimoroni NVNe base on one (with the pibow coupe 5 case and official cooler - make sure you get the long PCie cable), the other is
in the Argon NVMe case (from PiHat) which has an NVMe base board and
cooler built in. The performance of both boards is identical with the
same drive.

Note that the performance of NVMe drives can vary considerably though.

Does the rPi5 use U-Boot for NVMe. I've had a lot of problems with
U-Boot not recognising NVMe drives on a Orange Pi. The latest Armbian
Boot loader is working, I need to have a look to see if they are using U-Boot, I'm pretty sure they were in the past.

I had no problems with either of mine recognising the NVMe. I was using
USB SSDs with each of them, so I booted from a temporary SD card, cloned
the SSD on to the NVMe, and then rebooted with just the NVMe present.

---druck

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On 10/30/24 08:50, Andy Burns wrote:

Pancho wrote:

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months,

Oh, I don't have a Pi5, and though I kept hearing about 3rd party NVMe
HATs and lack of official one

OK, I see there is a story about rPi launching actual NVMe M.2 SSDs. As
opposed to a hat. I've no idea why they would do that. The obvious
suspicion is cashing in on a brand name.

<https://www.techpowerup.com/328021/raspberry-pi-launches-nvme-m-2-ssds-and-ready-to-use-ssd-kits>

It's hard to know what is going on with the Raspberry Pi guys, the
RK3588 devices are clearly faster, lower energy, albeit with shit
software support. Who knows what will happen with the next generation
Arm SoCs. I guess maybe Raspberry Pi have a clue, and hence decided to
monetise the brand now, before a new product wipes the floor with them.

I guess I should get one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a
NVMe USB enclosure which has appalling performance

Anyway, is it likely the write speeds are faster than the  read speeds?
I know some enterprise SSDs come in "read mostly" or "write mostly"
flavours, but for a Pi?

Dunno, IOPS doesn't mean a lot to me. As TNP says, maybe a write
operation is to cache, and a read is from main memory.

On many solid state persistence devices you see a very fast initial
write (presumably to cache) before quickly settling down to a much lower
rate for big files.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:

On 10/30/24 08:50, Andy Burns wrote:

Pancho wrote:

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months,

Oh, I don't have a Pi5, and though I kept hearing about 3rd party NVMe
HATs and lack of official one

OK, I see there is a story about rPi launching actual NVMe M.2 SSDs. As opposed to a hat. I've no idea why they would do that. The obvious
suspicion is cashing in on a brand name.

<https://www.techpowerup.com/328021/raspberry-pi-launches-nvme-m-2-ssds-and-ready-to-use-ssd-kits>

It may be they are doing it because supply of small-capacity 2230 NVMe is a
bit of a minefield. eg I checked scan.co.uk and the smallest 2230 they have
is 512GB. There are some 256GB sold by Amazon.co.uk which are more
expensive (and a few more dispatched by other sellers, of variable trustworthiness). At least with the RPi brand you know they're compatible,
and they seem to be decent value.

It's hard to know what is going on with the Raspberry Pi guys, the
RK3588 devices are clearly faster, lower energy, albeit with shit
software support. Who knows what will happen with the next generation
Arm SoCs. I guess maybe Raspberry Pi have a clue, and hence decided to monetise the brand now, before a new product wipes the floor with them.

It'll depend on what fab slots they can get. Not everyone can fab on the latest process, especially with a budget. Also how much cache they can
afford to put on the die.

RK3588: (64+64+512)*4+(32+32+128)*4+3072 = 6400KiB
RPi5 : 512*4+2048 = 4096KiB

RK3588 also has 4 extra A55 cores which RPi doesn't have, but is more
expensive ($100+ for the Banana Pi).

I guess I should get one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a
NVMe USB enclosure which has appalling performance

Anyway, is it likely the write speeds are faster than the  read speeds?
I know some enterprise SSDs come in "read mostly" or "write mostly" flavours, but for a Pi?

Dunno, IOPS doesn't mean a lot to me. As TNP says, maybe a write
operation is to cache, and a read is from main memory.

On many solid state persistence devices you see a very fast initial
write (presumably to cache) before quickly settling down to a much lower
rate for big files.

Any decent benchmarking tool should get past the cache to exercise the real storage.

I think they've got them around the wrong way. Their ODM Biwin's 2230 has
more read than write IOPS:
https://droix.co.uk/product/biwin-2230/

Theo

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On 30/10/2024 21:17, druck wrote:

I had no problems with either of mine recognising the NVMe. I was using
USB SSDs with each of them, so I booted from a temporary SD card, cloned
the SSD on to the NVMe, and then rebooted with just the NVMe present.

That is a useful factoid. Thanks

--
Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.

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On 30/10/2024 22:07, Pancho wrote:
peration is to cache, and a read is from main memory.

On many solid state persistence devices you see a very fast initial
write (presumably to cache) before quickly settling down to a much lower
rate for big files.

And on any linux system with plenty of RAM in cache.

I only have a 100MBPS LAN currently, and file transfers appear to be
blazingly fast for the first few gigabytes and then appear to stall :-)



--
Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 30/10/2024 23:14, Theo wrote:

At least with the RPi brand you know they're compatible,
and they seem to be decent value.

I think that alone is why they are selling SD cards and power supplies.

My local PI hut also sells non RPI USB to SATA cables, because they are
tested and 'known to work'.

I think for a hobbyist, having dependable 'known to work' peripherals is
worth a little extra cash.


--
Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 10/30/24 23:14, Theo wrote:

Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:

On 10/30/24 08:50, Andy Burns wrote:

Pancho wrote:

The official NVMe Pi Hat has been out for months,

Oh, I don't have a Pi5, and though I kept hearing about 3rd party NVMe
HATs and lack of official one

OK, I see there is a story about rPi launching actual NVMe M.2 SSDs. As
opposed to a hat. I've no idea why they would do that. The obvious
suspicion is cashing in on a brand name.

<https://www.techpowerup.com/328021/raspberry-pi-launches-nvme-m-2-ssds-and-ready-to-use-ssd-kits>

It may be they are doing it because supply of small-capacity 2230 NVMe is a bit of a minefield. eg I checked scan.co.uk and the smallest 2230 they have is 512GB. There are some 256GB sold by Amazon.co.uk which are more
expensive (and a few more dispatched by other sellers, of variable trustworthiness). At least with the RPi brand you know they're compatible, and they seem to be decent value.

I have three 2242 NVMe, they work fine, apart from some versions of
U-Boot boot loader (They actually worked in older versions, then stopped working). A couple of those are 256GB from a couple of years ago, due to
the price low differential I would buy 512GB now.

I'm thinking of getting a M.2 NVMe adapter for my rPI5, I'll probably
get a Pimoroni one, because it take standard 2280 drives. Best to go
with the flow.

It's hard to know what is going on with the Raspberry Pi guys, the
RK3588 devices are clearly faster, lower energy, albeit with shit
software support. Who knows what will happen with the next generation
Arm SoCs. I guess maybe Raspberry Pi have a clue, and hence decided to
monetise the brand now, before a new product wipes the floor with them.

It'll depend on what fab slots they can get. Not everyone can fab on the latest process, especially with a budget. Also how much cache they can afford to put on the die.

RK3588: (64+64+512)*4+(32+32+128)*4+3072 = 6400KiB
RPi5 : 512*4+2048 = 4096KiB

RK3588 also has 4 extra A55 cores which RPi doesn't have, but is more expensive ($100+ for the Banana Pi).

It's only costs a little more, but the RK3588 is now two years old. For
me it it was the first PC quality Pi type device. I think the next
generation of Pi type devices may be genuine mass consumer products. The
rPi niche is disappearing, rPi will either become much bigger or much
smaller. Saying others have a manufacturing advantage is supporting the
idea rPi might have problems in future.

FWIW I'm not a traditional Linux/Unix person. When MS Win NT provided a
proper OS, I dropped Unix and was a MS Fanboi for 25 years. I looked at
Linux occasionally, but not seriously. Now I think Arm/Linux is about to
become a serious mass market desktop PC.

MS seem to be a little nervous too.

I guess I should get one, or maybe an alternative. I just bought a
NVMe USB enclosure which has appalling performance

Anyway, is it likely the write speeds are faster than the  read speeds? >>> I know some enterprise SSDs come in "read mostly" or "write mostly"
flavours, but for a Pi?

Dunno, IOPS doesn't mean a lot to me. As TNP says, maybe a write
operation is to cache, and a read is from main memory.

On many solid state persistence devices you see a very fast initial
write (presumably to cache) before quickly settling down to a much lower
rate for big files.

Any decent benchmarking tool should get past the cache to exercise the real storage.

These are marketing benchmarks, about as reliable as VW diesel vehicle
emission tests. i.e. They could do it properly, but they don't want to.

I think they've got them around the wrong way. Their ODM Biwin's 2230 has more read than write IOPS:
https://droix.co.uk/product/biwin-2230/

Yeahbut...

<https://www.scan.co.uk/products/512gb-wd-pc-sn740-m2-2230-pcie-40-x4-nvme-ssd-5000mb-s-read-4000mb-s-write-460k-800k-iops-tcg-pyrite>

650K IOPS Max. Random Read 4K
800K IOPS Max. Random Write 4K


But as I said, I don't really understand what IOPS means. The same
device quotes a faster Max Read than Max Write (presumably sustained read/write).

I'm not saying the Raspberry Pi NVMe spec is right, just that it is good manners to have a bit more evidence before accusing it of being wrong.

Theo

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On 31/10/2024 10:02, Pancho wrote:

FWIW I'm not a traditional Linux/Unix person. When MS Win NT provided a proper OS, I dropped Unix and was a MS Fanboi for 25 years. I looked at
Linux occasionally, but not seriously. Now I think Arm/Linux is about to become a serious mass market desktop PC.

Neither was I. I was micro only, except cross compiling on DEC unix on
two jobs.
I then get exposed to unix making it talk over modems. It made a great
server. Especially on PCs - SCO unix was massive value for money, but a desktop? Dont make me laugh. You needed a sun SPARC at the cheapest to
do that. But a PC with windows was a quarter the price or less.
Staff kept saying that linux was as good as unix, and it was, so it went
into our servers, but there was no real GUI desktop environment to match windows till the early noughties. I was never a Fanboi - having to
support it showed what a POS it was compared with Unix/Linux but what
else was there?


So when I retired I tried the desktop - around 2005 I think. It was OK
but I still needed a winPC for some apps, Then I messed with virtual box
and installed my old windows PC in that and havent looked back.

I think my first PC was around 1985. So twenty years on DOS.Windows desktops

And now getting on for twenty on Linux. Wow!


--
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all
private property.

Karl Marx

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Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:

I have three 2242 NVMe, they work fine, apart from some versions of
U-Boot boot loader (They actually worked in older versions, then stopped working). A couple of those are 256GB from a couple of years ago, due to
the price low differential I would buy 512GB now.

I'm thinking of getting a M.2 NVMe adapter for my rPI5, I'll probably
get a Pimoroni one, because it take standard 2280 drives. Best to go
with the flow.

Agreed, if you don't need the small size then I'd go 2280 - plenty more to choose from.

I think they've got them around the wrong way. Their ODM Biwin's 2230 has more read than write IOPS:
https://droix.co.uk/product/biwin-2230/

Yeahbut...

<https://www.scan.co.uk/products/512gb-wd-pc-sn740-m2-2230-pcie-40-x4-nvme-ssd-5000mb-s-read-4000mb-s-write-460k-800k-iops-tcg-pyrite>

650K IOPS Max. Random Read 4K
800K IOPS Max. Random Write 4K

But as I said, I don't really understand what IOPS means. The same
device quotes a faster Max Read than Max Write (presumably sustained read/write).

4K random read test:
If the disc contains N blocks of size 4K
Repeat:
- roll a dice between 0 and N to give you D
- read 4K block number D from the disc
- throw away the data that came back
IOPS = how many times you can do that in a second

IOPS is a function of how well the flash and controller can manage an unpredictable workload. It's also a function of transfer speed to some
extent - you still need to move the data. That 800K IOPS is 3.2GB/s or 26.2Gbps. The Pi's single PCIe lane is only officially rated at Gen2 or
5Gbps, which puts a hard limit of 4K IOPS of 150K (and PCIe transfers have additional overhead on top of that)

A more interesting graph in reviews is 'performance consistency': if you
give it a sustained write workload like this, after many minutes eventually
the speed falls as all the on-drive buffers fill up. How well engineered it
is will show whether it can hold its performance, degrade gradually, hop
around erratically, or fall off a cliff.

Theo

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