1 Topic by NxSd (edited by NxSd 2014-08-14 05:00:31)

  • NxSd
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-08-14
  • Posts: 1

Topic: Server

Hey

Is there any plan for a server version of the Novena computer? One without the sound chip and the accelerometer and the screen and all the fancy stuff.......
And maybe a second network interface.....

Does that sound like something that might happen at some point?

  • xobs
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-05-25
  • Posts: 442

Re: Server

The sound chip and accelerometer amount to only a dollar or two in total.  The major costs in terms of parts are the i.MX6q CPU and the FPGA.  You could significantly reduce the cost of the board by removing the FPGA, but at that point you're better off getting one of the many other i.MX6 boards.

The gigabit network interface is attached directly to the CPU (through an external PHY.)  The secondary Ethernet interface is a USB device, because that seemed the best way to connect it to the SoC.

  • Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 191

Re: Server

Talking of a server version of the board, the most obvious interface missing is SATA port, at least to me.
An lots of them at minimum 6, better 8 or 10. (currently my server/NAS at home seams limited with"only" 6 ports

4 Reply by jcftang (edited by jcftang 2014-09-03 17:32:33)

  • Registered: 2014-06-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Server

There is a mini-pci slot, that you can populate it with a gig-e port or a sata card to get more IO.

  • aland
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-10-04
  • Posts: 1

Re: Server

Just a thought: in case Novena Server ever come close to becoming a real thing, it would be very convenient to have some out-of-band (KVM-over-IP or Serial-over-IP) management device integrated. It probably could be based on the same chip that is currently used for battery board.

  • xobs
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-05-25
  • Posts: 442

Re: Server

You can do most everything over serial, and the battery board has a serial port.  You could come up with a network-enabled Senoko that controls power and passes serial out the Ethernet port, in which case you have a KVM-on-a-board.

That's a really great idea.

  • Registered: 2014-06-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Server

Power Over Ethernet and iPXE booting would probably be more useful, if you had those two features you could rack up a bunch of novena's in an 'enterprise environment' for scaling out, power cycle things over ethernet and boot/reboot machines with different pxe targets for different things, it would be nice to have out-of-band power cycling though.

  • xobs
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-05-25
  • Posts: 442

Re: Server

In theory, the i.MX6 supports I2C booting.  It's not well documented at all, and it's slow, so I wouldn't recommend it.

If you wanted PXE booting, I'd recommend storing U-Boot on the internal SD card and having it pull from the network.  U-Boot can already get images via TFTP, and there's no reason you couldn't have it pull the U-Boot script as well.