Hi, I just learned about this new line of single board computers, and very excited to give one a try. I am especially interested in the Advanced Plus. I am intending to install Linux on it and using it as a desktop PC for my kid to do some websurfing and multimedia. I am comfortable with the specifications of the hardware and have a lot of experience installing Linux on low-end hardware. I am excited to use Udoo because it is inexpensive and fanless and has all the features I need. However, I am interested in the community's thoughts on whether this board was designed to be a good desktop computer? I'm particularly interested in the eMMC storage. I would be relying on it as the primary operating system drive. Can it handle this use case? As far as I know, this type of storage is more akin to an SD card, which may not be able to handle the constant rewrites that happen on an OS drive. Are there any other aspects of the design of the board that might make it less suitable as a desktop computer? Thanks for any thoughts and opinions.
When I backed the kickstarter for UDOO x86 advanced..I thought...why don't I buy a commercial computer based on this chip (mainly because of the low power usage) So I got a N3700 based pc from dell running w10. It works fine for general purpose stuff..websurfing and watching multimedia. Typing in the latest version of Word becomes quite hard when a lot of stuff is running in the background. ( Edit: just turned off animations in Windows 10..typing goes a lot faster now)..and working in Visual Studio 2015 is no [edit still no] joy. But with linux that probably won't be a concern. So the only reservation is indeed the SD card...and that is the only thing I don't have experience with.
Thanks! Good to hear it has the horsepower for my use case. I plan to use the m.2 slot for WiFi, so I would be relying on the SD card slot and onboard eMMC storage for the OS. I will have to research a bit to see whether this is suitable. There are Linux distros that run from RAM and can write to disk only when shutting down, but I would prefer not to go in that direction.
Is there a reason you do not want to use a more traditional type storage for the main OS drive? There are two M2 slots on the board. One is type E and intended for WiF/Bluetooth module, while the other type B one can take a SSD. This is probably the best for the mass storage (from both a performance and reliability perspective). There is also the option of using the SATA port for mass storage (HDD or SSD) where a 2.5" form factor would not add appreciably to the overall size
Ahh for some reason I thought there was only one m.2 slot. That indeed solves the problem for me, thanks!
Hello to everyone, @audelair 1) If you are concerned for the eMMC storage as the only option, then you should consider an attached SSD. In other words, eMMC is not the only option; 2) As @itimpi told you, M2 Key B and M2 Key are two different slots. You may attach an SSD to the M2 Key B slot and a Wi-Fi/BT module on the M2 Key E slot. In other words, you can exploit both at the same time.
