9 ms·

Oh my! This is such a crazy upgrade. I've been using the RPI2 as my HTPC/NAS at my folks, and I'm so happy with it. I was itching to get the last one for myself

Oh my! This is such a crazy upgrade. I've been using the RPI2 as my HTPC/NAS at my folks, and I'm so happy with it. I was itching to get the last one for myself. USB 3.0! Gigabit Ethernet! WiFi 802.11ac, BT 5.0, 4GB RAM! 4K! $55 at most?! What the!? How the??! I know I'm not maintaining decorum at Hacker News, but I am SO mighty, MIGHTY excited! I'm setting up a VPN to hook this (when I get it) to my VPS and then do a LOT of fun stuff back and forth, remotely, and with the other RPI at my folks.

birdman3131 7y ago
I have a 10tb external hooked to my routers usb 2 port and have always been looking for something better. This looks like it.
equasar 7y ago
Do you have a good guide to setup a nice VPN server?
- elseless 7y ago
  This script is really nice: https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install It sets up systemd and iptables and generates all certs and keys and wraps them up into tidy, per-client .ovpn files
- biophetik 7y ago
  Another to check out is http://www.pivpn.io http://www.pivpn.io. Very easy to setup and use.
masklinn 7y ago
> I've been using the RPI2 as my HTPC/NAS at my folks Could you provide some details? The USB-adapted ethernet & lack of wifi sounds limiting for a NAS.
- westpfelia 7y ago
  Not OP but... If I would guess hes using OpenMediaVault? It works rather well on even gen 1 pi's.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    It might work "well" as long as you don't need a lot of capacity, nor do you care about the fact that everything is running at < 30MB/sec. The existing rpi lines are seriously IO bandwidth constrained in every manner. The USB3 on the 4 hopefully fixes some of this. Bottom line, unless you don't mind your photo's taking minutes to copy, your going to be much better off with pretty much anything else besides a rpi3 as a file server.
venugopal113 7y ago
True..
xorcist 7y ago
> I've been using the RPI2 as my HTPC/NAS Using the Pi as a file server can be a bit flaky. The ethernet controller was an USB one, and was neither really stable or took load very well. The new PHY on a dedicated link is probably the single biggest improvement with this new revision. The HEVC is a bit unexpected considering the high license fees and general uncertainties. Let's hope the documentation can be released as well.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Zenst 7y ago
  The HEVC codec may well be an additional cost for CODEC license as is the case with VC-1 and MPEG2(though that expired!). https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/codeclicence.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/conf... So unsure at this stage, but that may well be the case for any license fees regarding HVEC. Heck, if they have absorbed those costs into the base price - I'd be utterly amazed.
- KingFelix 7y ago
  are you speaking about the pi 4 or 2? I just setup my RockPro64 with 4GB, also PCIex4, have an SSD, going to setup a raid at somepoint when I get it all figured out. The board was a bit more expensive than the pi4, but I am interested in playing around with it. But it looks like its back ordered for awhile
  - marcosscriven 7y ago
    I did not get that board stable at all I’m afraid. Lots of issues with USB drives. https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/issues/112 https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/issues/112
    - KingFelix 7y ago
      ahh, I started with a USB 3, removed it though and dropped in the SSD. So far so good, and using Dietpi, it works great (so far) https://dietpi.com/ https://dietpi.com/
throw0101a 7y ago
> Gigabit Ethernet! Does it have PoE? Having to deal with one less cable would be nice. Especially given that the latest spec, IEEE 802.3bt from September 2018, now allows for up to 100W per port: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet
- MisterTea 7y ago
  There is an official PoE board that fits the pi 3+ which uses a 4 pin header by the ethernet jack to grab power. The pi 4 appears to have the same header. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/
  - phinnaeus 7y ago
    I have one of these but am new to RPi. It covers all of the GPIO pins in addition to the four header pins for power. Is there any way to still use the GPIO pins with the PoE hat?
    - DougBTX 7y ago
      Yes, though you'll need pass-through header pins: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-power-over-ethernet-poe-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-power-over-ethe...
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    Seems kludge-y. IMHO, if one is going to do one of these types of embedded systems, then PoE should really be part of the design process from the beginning. They're using the Ethernet on the BCM2711, and Broadcom has sadly deemed PoE not needed I guess. The PoE HAT had a bunch of issues: * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/11/raspberry_pi_poe_hat_issue/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/11/raspberry_pi_poe_ha...
    - ars 7y ago
      > The PoE HAT had a bunch of issues They released a new version quite a while ago. I agree that it would be nice if PoE was built in, but there are better ways to say that than what you said. Also, the HAT has a transformer (and I assume if they included it, they know what they are doing), which seems like it would be too much for every single Pi to include one.
johnvega 7y ago
Feels like an exponential upgrade.
apple4ever 7y ago
I agree with your excitement! I've been waiting for this upgrade forever. I keep looking at the other options out there, but while their hardware is great, their software is terrible.
mtgx 7y ago
Even so, A72 is a highly-inefficient chip (which is probably why they set such a low clock speed for it). Cortex-A73 would've been much better. But I guess there always has to be at least one obvious lacking in Raspberry Pi generations.
- ris 7y ago
  I'm intrigued as to why they didn't use a big.LITTLE design (or whatever they're calling it these days). Perhaps mainstream-linux still isn't so great at handling it.
  - detaro 7y ago
    Really the only benefit of that is energy efficiency if it is used correctly, in exchange for additional cost or lower max performance. Makes sense for a smartphone, less so for a mains powered device (and the Raspberry Pi SoCs originally were designed for set-top boxes, although I don't know if that's still true for the new ones or if they're custom)
    - monery 7y ago
      energy efficiency also leads to higher sustained clock speeds if your not using a fan to move air over a heatsink
bcheung 7y ago
TLDR; of cons from various sources: - New SoC puts out more heat. Active cooling more important now. - Video playback at 4K requires H.265 - Micro-HDMI cables now needed. - Draws more power. Other than that, looks like a major performance boost.
- supergauntlet 7y ago
  >Video playback at 4K requires H.265 Not really a con IMO, I haven't seen anything on a 4k bluray encoded in h.264, everything seems to be 265. The microHDMI is kind of a bummer though. I actually wonder if the A72 CPUs onboard are fast enough to do software h.264 4k decode. They might be.
dheera 7y ago
Excited too, but $55 + $13.95 shipping = $68.95 is inching closer to the $99 (free shipping) territory of the Jetson Nano.
- anchpop 7y ago
  Does it really compete with the Jetson Nano? I thought it was designed for AI stuff
  - dheera 7y ago
    Sure, if you're doing CPU-only tasks, Jetson Nano is A57 and Pi4 is A72 which is maybe twice as fast, but if you can offload anything to the GPU at all (media encoding, neural networks, matrix operations) you'll probably get some enormous gains in efficiency with the Nano.
    - StillBored 7y ago
      OTOH, your going to be pretty much stuck with whatever handouts nvidia gives you unless your willing to hack the firmware/etc and reverse engineer stuff. Pretty much everything works on the existing rpi. Heck you can run Windows IoT on it. It has a UEFI firmware (edk2) port which mostly complete, and pretty much every distro and 3rd party OS supports it. And the hardware itself is mostly open at this point.
      - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
        This. Jetson is part of NVIDIA's pipeline to drive customers to their chips. Raspberry Pi is vaguely that for Broadcom but is much more an end in and of itself. RPi is massively supported on the web. If you're doing stuff that needs the Jetson, it's great, but the Pi is definitely better supported.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      How does the Jetson Nano GPU compare to the RPi 4's VideoCore VI?
inson 7y ago
Do you have a blog or something for us, mortals, to learn
m463 7y ago
I like the usb-c input. The big shortcoming of the other Raspberry Pis I have is power. Plug anything into it and you risk undervoltage problems (even with the official supply) [ 49.910905] Under-voltage detected! (0x00050000) [ 76.949928] Voltage normalised (0x00000000) [ 436.806032] rpi_firmware_get_throttled: 1 callbacks suppressed [ 436.806038] Voltage normalised (0x00000000) [ 438.886093] rpi_firmware_get_throttled: 2 callbacks suppressed [ 438.886100] Under-voltage detected! (0x00050000) [ 445.126338] Voltage normalised (0x00000000) I hope the new power input will stablize things.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  I'm wondering if you could power two USB 3.0 2.5" HDD through the Raspberry Pi 4 without requiring external power supplies for them now. Would be nice to build a NAS with as few cables as possible.
- levesque 7y ago
  An alternative would have been a powered USB hub.
  - m463 7y ago
    I have one system where I relented and did that, but really, for many generations of pi... why is this even a thing? For example, recently I plugged in a USB stick and a webcam and couldn't boot. So I would boot, then then plug in the webcam ... carefully. And there were still 2 usb ports free.

birdman3131 7y ago

I have a 10tb external hooked to my routers usb 2 port and have always been looking for something better. This looks like it.

equasar 7y ago

Do you have a good guide to setup a nice VPN server?

elseless 7y ago
This script is really nice: https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install It sets up systemd and iptables and generates all certs and keys and wraps them up into tidy, per-client .ovpn files
biophetik 7y ago
Another to check out is http://www.pivpn.io http://www.pivpn.io. Very easy to setup and use.

masklinn 7y ago

> I've been using the RPI2 as my HTPC/NAS at my folks Could you provide some details? The USB-adapted ethernet & lack of wifi sounds limiting for a NAS.

westpfelia 7y ago
Not OP but... If I would guess hes using OpenMediaVault? It works rather well on even gen 1 pi's.
- StillBored 7y ago
  It might work "well" as long as you don't need a lot of capacity, nor do you care about the fact that everything is running at < 30MB/sec. The existing rpi lines are seriously IO bandwidth constrained in every manner. The USB3 on the 4 hopefully fixes some of this. Bottom line, unless you don't mind your photo's taking minutes to copy, your going to be much better off with pretty much anything else besides a rpi3 as a file server.

venugopal113 7y ago

True..

xorcist 7y ago

> I've been using the RPI2 as my HTPC/NAS Using the Pi as a file server can be a bit flaky. The ethernet controller was an USB one, and was neither really stable or took load very well. The new PHY on a dedicated link is probably the single biggest improvement with this new revision. The HEVC is a bit unexpected considering the high license fees and general uncertainties. Let's hope the documentation can be released as well.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Zenst 7y ago
The HEVC codec may well be an additional cost for CODEC license as is the case with VC-1 and MPEG2(though that expired!). https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/codeclicence.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/conf... So unsure at this stage, but that may well be the case for any license fees regarding HVEC. Heck, if they have absorbed those costs into the base price - I'd be utterly amazed.
KingFelix 7y ago
are you speaking about the pi 4 or 2? I just setup my RockPro64 with 4GB, also PCIex4, have an SSD, going to setup a raid at somepoint when I get it all figured out. The board was a bit more expensive than the pi4, but I am interested in playing around with it. But it looks like its back ordered for awhile
- marcosscriven 7y ago
  I did not get that board stable at all I’m afraid. Lots of issues with USB drives. https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/issues/112 https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/issues/112
  - KingFelix 7y ago
    ahh, I started with a USB 3, removed it though and dropped in the SSD. So far so good, and using Dietpi, it works great (so far) https://dietpi.com/ https://dietpi.com/

throw0101a 7y ago

> Gigabit Ethernet! Does it have PoE? Having to deal with one less cable would be nice. Especially given that the latest spec, IEEE 802.3bt from September 2018, now allows for up to 100W per port: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet

MisterTea 7y ago
There is an official PoE board that fits the pi 3+ which uses a 4 pin header by the ethernet jack to grab power. The pi 4 appears to have the same header. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/
- phinnaeus 7y ago
  I have one of these but am new to RPi. It covers all of the GPIO pins in addition to the four header pins for power. Is there any way to still use the GPIO pins with the PoE hat?
  - DougBTX 7y ago
    Yes, though you'll need pass-through header pins: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-power-over-ethernet-poe-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-power-over-ethe...
- throw0101a 7y ago
  Seems kludge-y. IMHO, if one is going to do one of these types of embedded systems, then PoE should really be part of the design process from the beginning. They're using the Ethernet on the BCM2711, and Broadcom has sadly deemed PoE not needed I guess. The PoE HAT had a bunch of issues: * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/11/raspberry_pi_poe_hat_issue/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/11/raspberry_pi_poe_ha...
  - ars 7y ago
    > The PoE HAT had a bunch of issues They released a new version quite a while ago. I agree that it would be nice if PoE was built in, but there are better ways to say that than what you said. Also, the HAT has a transformer (and I assume if they included it, they know what they are doing), which seems like it would be too much for every single Pi to include one.

johnvega 7y ago

Feels like an exponential upgrade.

apple4ever 7y ago

I agree with your excitement! I've been waiting for this upgrade forever. I keep looking at the other options out there, but while their hardware is great, their software is terrible.

mtgx 7y ago

Even so, A72 is a highly-inefficient chip (which is probably why they set such a low clock speed for it). Cortex-A73 would've been much better. But I guess there always has to be at least one obvious lacking in Raspberry Pi generations.

ris 7y ago
I'm intrigued as to why they didn't use a big.LITTLE design (or whatever they're calling it these days). Perhaps mainstream-linux still isn't so great at handling it.
- detaro 7y ago
  Really the only benefit of that is energy efficiency if it is used correctly, in exchange for additional cost or lower max performance. Makes sense for a smartphone, less so for a mains powered device (and the Raspberry Pi SoCs originally were designed for set-top boxes, although I don't know if that's still true for the new ones or if they're custom)
  - monery 7y ago
    energy efficiency also leads to higher sustained clock speeds if your not using a fan to move air over a heatsink

bcheung 7y ago

TLDR; of cons from various sources: - New SoC puts out more heat. Active cooling more important now. - Video playback at 4K requires H.265 - Micro-HDMI cables now needed. - Draws more power. Other than that, looks like a major performance boost.

supergauntlet 7y ago
>Video playback at 4K requires H.265 Not really a con IMO, I haven't seen anything on a 4k bluray encoded in h.264, everything seems to be 265. The microHDMI is kind of a bummer though. I actually wonder if the A72 CPUs onboard are fast enough to do software h.264 4k decode. They might be.

dheera 7y ago

Excited too, but $55 + $13.95 shipping = $68.95 is inching closer to the $99 (free shipping) territory of the Jetson Nano.

anchpop 7y ago
Does it really compete with the Jetson Nano? I thought it was designed for AI stuff
- dheera 7y ago
  Sure, if you're doing CPU-only tasks, Jetson Nano is A57 and Pi4 is A72 which is maybe twice as fast, but if you can offload anything to the GPU at all (media encoding, neural networks, matrix operations) you'll probably get some enormous gains in efficiency with the Nano.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    OTOH, your going to be pretty much stuck with whatever handouts nvidia gives you unless your willing to hack the firmware/etc and reverse engineer stuff. Pretty much everything works on the existing rpi. Heck you can run Windows IoT on it. It has a UEFI firmware (edk2) port which mostly complete, and pretty much every distro and 3rd party OS supports it. And the hardware itself is mostly open at this point.
    - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
      This. Jetson is part of NVIDIA's pipeline to drive customers to their chips. Raspberry Pi is vaguely that for Broadcom but is much more an end in and of itself. RPi is massively supported on the web. If you're doing stuff that needs the Jetson, it's great, but the Pi is definitely better supported.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    How does the Jetson Nano GPU compare to the RPi 4's VideoCore VI?

inson 7y ago

Do you have a blog or something for us, mortals, to learn

m463 7y ago

I like the usb-c input. The big shortcoming of the other Raspberry Pis I have is power. Plug anything into it and you risk undervoltage problems (even with the official supply) [ 49.910905] Under-voltage detected! (0x00050000) [ 76.949928] Voltage normalised (0x00000000) [ 436.806032] rpi_firmware_get_throttled: 1 callbacks suppressed [ 436.806038] Voltage normalised (0x00000000) [ 438.886093] rpi_firmware_get_throttled: 2 callbacks suppressed [ 438.886100] Under-voltage detected! (0x00050000) [ 445.126338] Voltage normalised (0x00000000) I hope the new power input will stablize things.

m-p-3 7y ago
I'm wondering if you could power two USB 3.0 2.5" HDD through the Raspberry Pi 4 without requiring external power supplies for them now. Would be nice to build a NAS with as few cables as possible.
levesque 7y ago
An alternative would have been a powered USB hub.
- m463 7y ago
  I have one system where I relented and did that, but really, for many generations of pi... why is this even a thing? For example, recently I plugged in a USB stick and a webcam and couldn't boot. So I would boot, then then plug in the webcam ... carefully. And there were still 2 usb ports free.