NanoPi R2S : Raspberry alternative comes with two gigabit ports
NanoPI R2S, a new single-board computer will appear soon. The model can be connected via two Ethernet ports and is based on a SoC from Rockchip.
FriendlyARM offers numerous, inexpensive single-board computers, which, depending on the specific application, may compete with the extremely popular Raspberry Pi. With the NanoPi R2S, the manufacturer has now introduced a new model.
The NanoPi R2S is particularly suitable for us as a router, not least because of the two Ethernet ports. For this purpose, the manufacturer will provide both a special OpenWrt version and the Ubuntu 18.04 core derivative FriendlyCore. More details can be found in the Wiki (Chinese version only for now).
If you’d like to get two Gigabit Ethernet reaching close to 1 Gbps each, and your target application would benefit from a bit more memory, the company is now working on NanoPi R2S based on Rockchip RK3328 processor with 1GB DDR4 memory, one Ethernet port using the GMAC from the chip, and one Ethernet port relying one a USB 3.0 to Ethernet controller. Since WiFi is missing, the company recommends USB dongles based on RTL8821CU since those are supported by the default firmware out of the box. The board also supports 4G LTE via Huawei 8372H-155 USB dongle.
External sensors and actuators can also be connected via a header. Specifically, a GPIO header consisting of ten pins is available, which supports I2C and UART, among others. A cooling fan can be connected directly.
NanoPi R2S specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2
- System Memory – 1GB DDR4 RAM
- Storage – MicroSD Slot, SPI flash footprint
- Connectivity
- 1x Gigabit Ethernet (WAN) up to 941 Mbps (measured)
- 1x USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet (LAN) up to 941 Mbps (measured) via Realtek RTL8153
802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 with IPX-I antenna connector
- USB – 1x USB Type-A host port, 1x micro USB port (power + slave)
- Debugging – 3-pin 2.54mm pitch header for serial console
- Expansion – 10-pin GPIO header with GPIOs, I2C, UART, IR_Rx, 5V, 3.3V and GND
- Misc – 3x LEDs (WAN, LAN, SYS), K1 reset button, fan header
- Power Supply – 5VDC/3A via micro USB port
- Dimensions – 55.6 x 52mm
- Temperature Range – -20℃ to 70℃
As usual with single-board computers, a microSD card can serve as internal memory, and there is also the option of installing SPI flash. External storage media or peripheral devices can be connected via USB – the micro USB connection is supplemented by a type A host port. The serial console can be addressed via a header.
That also means pricing is not available, but considering NanoPi R1S sells for $19.99 (H3) / $22.99 (H5) with the enclosure, I’d expect NanoPi R2S to sell for a few dollars more, maybe $26.99?, due to the extra memory and USB 3.0 to Ethernet controller.
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