Introducing: Raspberry Pi 5!

[JPortici]

I did some studying over the weekend and nothing makes an MMC or eMMC more reliable than a microSD or other SD card.  The protocol is different so may be more suitable for things like in-place execution, but they both now rely on standard NAND flash technology.  An eMMC is more accurately thought of as a MicroSD that can be soldered in place, so cheaper.

That is a very good, question.

My understanding is that microSD cards, on previous Pi’s, had issues with damage to the data on it, sometimes so bad (in time), that the Pi would no longer, even boot from it.  Especially vulnerable during power down.  Maybe because previous Pi’s, had no power button.

so, basically this.

[SiliconWizard]

It's because some SD cards (not quite all) are relatively vulnerable to being powered off suddenly, even when using a journaling filesystem.

The power button won't do anything about it - it just triggers the shutdown/reboot/... menu when you are booted into Linux under a desktop environment, just a "hotkey" in other words. You could use the same shutdown option from Linux before.

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

[MK14]

The power button won't do anything about it - it just triggers the shutdown/reboot/... menu when you are booted into Linux under a desktop environment, just a "hotkey" in other words. You could use the same shutdown option from Linux before.

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

I suspect, some people would either lose interest, in shutting down properly, or wouldn’t know how.
Without a quick and easy power on / off button.

Also, the average user, might have no perception, that sudden power loss can corrupt the microSD card.

A physical power button, may either teach such people, or persuade them, to do the right thing (safe shut-down requests).

[abeyer]

I suspect, some people would either lose interest, in shutting down properly, or wouldn’t know how.
Without a quick and easy power on / off button.

Also, the average user, might have no perception, that sudden power loss can corrupt the microSD card.

A physical power button, may either teach such people, or persuade them, to do the right thing (safe shut-down requests).

Sure, that was always part of the problem... but if you intend to keep a device on any extended periods of time, power failures are a reality you have to face. (and it's silly to think about spending the money it would take to put a reliable UPS in front of a $35 computer.)

Also the problem is more than just file system corruption... it seems to actually damage the flash. My 3B has pretty consistently destroyed any card that's mounted if the power goes down unexpectedly -- any further attempts to read or write the card even on other devices end up in a death spiral of bad blocks and hardware errors.

[MK14]

Sure, that was always part of the problem... but if you intend to keep a device on any extended periods of time, power failures are a reality you have to face. (and it's silly to think about spending the money it would take to put a reliable UPS in front of a $35 computer.)

Also the problem is more than just file system corruption... it seems to actually damage the flash. My 3B has pretty consistently destroyed any card that's mounted if the power goes down unexpectedly -- any further attempts to read or write the card even on other devices end up in a death spiral of bad blocks and hardware errors.

My approximate understanding is as follows:
Consider a high end, proper consumer SSD.  Cheaper ones may lack some of these features, such as supercapacitors, DRAM etc.

Behind the scenes, it has many data protecting / preserving mechanisms.

Such as a supercapacitor, so if the power suddenly disappears, it can finish all writes and flush any cached write data, to the disk.
A sizeable DRAM, so that if the same sector is continually updated / changed, it can update the DRAM copy, without wearing out the flash.
A powerful processor and / or controller chip, whose extensive firmware can attempt to detect bad sectors (data), then correct it (moving recovered data, to a good sector) if possible (e.g. small number of bit errors), or failing that.  Reliably mark it as unreadable, hence at least allowing everything else to work as normal.   Unlike much simpler microSD  cards, which under similar circumstances, may just crash or have lots of errors.

Also microSD cards, seem to be design and built to a bare minimum cost.  So can have poor cooling and lack many SSD features.

In other words.  A microSD card is not the best of choices, to use as a ‘HDD’ (SSD).

[abeyer]

Consider a high end, proper consumer SSD.  Cheaper ones may lack some of these features, such as supercapacitors, DRAM etc.

Behind the scenes, it has many data protecting / preserving mechanisms.

Yeah, exactly... which gets back to the original point of people wanting some built-in storage interface other than microsd, so they can get those things if they care.

I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out. Switched to a pine64 board, which despite the poor software support side of things, was much more stable because I can put a proper sata ssd on it.

[MK14]

Yeah, exactly... which gets back to the original point of people wanting some built-in storage interface other than microsd, so they can get those things if they care.

I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out. Switched to a pine64 board, which despite the poor software support side of things, was much more stable because I can put a proper sata ssd on it.

You have hit the nail on the head!
That is EXACTLY what I was worried about.
Possibly unreliable and data losing, microSD cards.

Hence wanting a very reliable, long lasting alternative.
Which I hoped would be eMMC, but as a result of this thread.  I’m not so sure, so maybe M.2 SSD, via case/HAT/adaptor/etc, is best?  If eMMC is not available and/or not as reliable.

[ejeffrey]

I did some studying over the weekend and nothing makes an MMC or eMMC more reliable than a microSD or other SD card.  The protocol is different so may be more suitable for things like in-place execution, but they both now rely on standard NAND flash technology.  An eMMC is more accurately thought of as a MicroSD that can be soldered in place, so cheaper.

My assumption always has been that the "more reliable" part was 10% "tends to use higher quality flash chips" and 90% "avoids a flaky connector and the possibility of the user unplugging them while active"

[beanflying]

It might make more sense on the Pi5 to make an eMMC hat/plugin to suit the PCIe port that takes the fairly common de facto standard modules.

The USB adapters stick out a long way and would be easy to knock but they are still an option of sorts I guess.

[rteodor]

Hence wanting a very reliable, long lasting alternative.
Which I hoped would be eMMC, but as a result of this thread.  I’m not so sure, so maybe M.2 SSD, via case/HAT/adaptor/etc, is best?  If eMMC is not available and/or not as reliable.

A reliable and long lasting solution is SLC SDCards. I use such cards for almost 10 years now and they are more reliable than the Pi's they run on.

And not to forget: Pi's are not used only in "edu" market but also in industrial and commercial applications where reliability is important.
But then I guess those applications are much less likely to use the latest Pi versions or use customized versions. Or they use CM versions.

[SiliconWizard]

Or they use CM versions.

Which come with eMMC.

Wondering if there's going to be a CM5?

[thermistor-guy]

...
I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out..

I run a few rpi model 3b units, always on, as network appliances. Transcend and Sandisk microSD cards have worked well as main storage.

[rteodor]

Or they use CM versions.

Which come with eMMC.

Wondering if there's going to be a CM5?

There are clients with pockets, capable to design products and integrate Pi CM modules. Would Pi Foundation miss the chance to sell them RP1 once they poured 25M into developing it ? I would bet that CM5 will be much more interesting than CM3&4.

[Karel]

...
I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out..

I run a few rpi model 3b units, always on, as network appliances. Transcend and Sandisk microSD cards have worked well as main storage.

The same here. Spend a couple of bucks more for better cards and try to avoid accidental powerloss.

I use Libreelec on an RPI3B almost every night  and I never had a corrupted card.
Use mostly Sandisk cards class 10 speed bought from an offical retail shop, not some webshop with discounts.

Don't blame the RPI because of poor quality SD-cards.

[bitwelder]

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

I'd hope that there is also a header available on the board for the 'power button' function, so one can connect some other remote switch to turn on the Pi (e.g. a self-powered IR receiver)

[SiliconWizard]

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

I'd hope that there is also a header available on the board for the 'power button' function, so one can connect some other remote switch to turn on the Pi (e.g. a self-powered IR receiver)

Good point and good question.

[abeyer]

The same here. Spend a couple of bucks more for better cards and try to avoid accidental powerloss.

I use Libreelec on an RPI3B almost every night  and I never had a corrupted card.
Use mostly Sandisk cards class 10 speed bought from an offical retail shop, not some webshop with discounts.

Don't blame the RPI because of poor quality SD-cards.

I can't speak for others, but mine has consistently killed good name brand cards, and even a variety of several brands from different vendors. Maybe there's something wrong w/ my board, but I've never had the power fail on it and not had the card die... so, yeah, I'm gonna blame the pi.

[Infraviolet]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such? I'm not meaning heading toward microcontrollers*, always smaller, cheaper and lower consumption than SBCs, but embedded computers to have a full OS and file system on them. The Pi Zero and Zero W as the ideal examples.

The path recently was:
Pi 3, pretty much never needed a fan andother cooling help
Pi 4, often bu not always needs a fan for the high powered versions when doing any fairly heavy computatio
Pi 5, almost always needs a fan

Seems to be away from the direction the Zero and Zero W aimed for.

*they're already doing this with the rp3040 as a very good product for that entirely separate field of use

[themadhippy]

rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such

Aint that the pi picos market?

[langwadt]

rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such

Aint that the pi picos market?

pico is an MCU, not what I'd call an SBC

[beanflying]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such? I'm not meaning heading toward microcontrollers*, always smaller, cheaper and lower consumption than SBCs, but embedded computers to have a full OS and file system on them. The Pi Zero and Zero W as the ideal examples.

The path recently was:
Pi 3, pretty much never needed a fan andother cooling help
Pi 4, often bu not always needs a fan for the high powered versions when doing any fairly heavy computatio
Pi 5, almost always needs a fan

Seems to be away from the direction the Zero and Zero W aimed for.

*they're already doing this with the rp3040 as a very good product for that entirely separate field of use

Not just you https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/are-high-end-sbc-toast-or-is-12thgen-amd-x64-going-to-kill-them-off/

After some decent playing with both my view has sort of solidified that there is still a place for high end SBC's BUT there is significant downsides to them for general purpose computing work because of software and mainline support issues. By the time you power supply, case and storage some higher end SBC's you can actually now buy an N100 Intel 'system' for less.

[Infraviolet]

In a robot you'd often have several Picos (rp2040) handling realtime control of sensors and actuators, dealing with feedback loops which need to happen fast, all as slaves to a small SBC which would make higher level longer term decisions, the sort of thing for which having a full OS software stack and the ability for your robot's program to call other existing programs  and handle files is really helpful. These sort of things work well together, MCU and smal SBCs, whereas large higher performance SBCs can become more challenging to mount and power, space and power constraints can get quite tight. Cost is an issue too, although once you account for the cost of sensors and actuators the cost of the SBC is less significant a factor than the importance of being small and not drawing so much current. Cost applies more where your "robot" is some sort of IoT device with perhaps just one actuator or sensor, again size and power consumption* matter.

*an actuator might take rather more power than an SBC, but the actuator might only move occasionally, the SBC is on all of the time

[SiliconWizard]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such?

Maybe, maybe not.
To begin with, embedded stuff has never really been the core point of the RPi foundation. It's been to give access to ultra-cheap computing to the masses, in particular poor people who can't afford more expensive stuff.

Sure people have been using these boards for all kinds of things, but purely focusing on embedded would IMO defeat the main goal of the RPi. So they have to update their designs on a regular basis to match the level of performance that's still relevantly equivalent to what their goal has always been.

Now, arguably, prices going up would be against the RPi's core goal, but if you look at it and compared to the previous generations, at constant value (especially considering the current level of inflation everywhere), the price raise is still reasonable. (And the prices we get here in the EU as I mentioned are not RPi's concern, they are all due to various taxes.)

Also, they have released simplified variants (the "zeroes") in the past, at a very low cost. We'll see if they release a "zero" variant of the RPi5 (as well as a CM5 OTOH, as I mentioned earlier.)

[IanB]

I don't know how things work in NZ, nor the deal about this $1000 threshold. Over here in EU, we pay VAT on absolutely everything starting at the first cent.

What I understand about the UK is that if you buy something from the UK that is to be shipped to an overseas address (such as NZ, or the EU), then UK VAT should not be charged. However, you will of course be subject to VAT and import duty for the country (France?) where you receive the goods, and it may be that a customs agreement between the EU and the UK requires the UK seller to collect EU VAT on your behalf and record it on the customs form.

This is, for example, the case if you buy something from China for delivery to the UK (and also the EU). The Chinese seller is obligated to collect VAT on the sale and remit it to the UK government.

[David Hess]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such? I'm not meaning heading toward microcontrollers*, always smaller, cheaper and lower consumption than SBCs, but embedded computers to have a full OS and file system on them. The Pi Zero and Zero W as the ideal examples.

The path recently was:
Pi 3, pretty much never needed a fan andother cooling help
Pi 4, often bu not always needs a fan for the high powered versions when doing any fairly heavy computatio
Pi 5, almost always needs a fan

If they had originally placed the processor where a board sized aluminum heat sink could be placed, or the processor could contact the enclosure like on my x86 based Alix, then passive cooling would never have been a problem.  Some of the Pi alternatives are designed this way with the processor exposed on the back of the board.

The original design was optimistic about cooling even with its low power processor.

You have hit the nail on the head!
That is EXACTLY what I was worried about.
Possibly unreliable and data losing, microSD cards.

Hence wanting a very reliable, long lasting alternative.
Which I hoped would be eMMC, but as a result of this thread.  I’m not so sure, so maybe M.2 SSD, via case/HAT/adaptor/etc, is best?  If eMMC is not available and/or not as reliable.

My solution has been to use full size 2.5 inch SATA SSDs, and I have had no problems with the Crucial BX and MX 500 units that I have, but M.2 SSDs could be good also.  I tested a SATA Samsung 870 EVO for a while which did have data corruption issues but it was not clear what caused it.

In the past I had good results with industrial Compact Flash cards, but had problems with limited endurance.