Do you think a possible raspbery pi 4 will have a sata interface ?

[William Gaatjes]

I am wondering if the current broadcom chip on the raspberry pi 3 has a sata controller on board.
For as far as i could find, both the bcm2836 (pi 2) and bcm2837(pi 3) do not have a sata interface.
That would be such a treat.
An usb to sata interface is a solution but not for me.

Moved from Programming -- Programming Moderator Ken g6

 

[whm1974]

That would be nice. Me, I'm waiting on something using this:
https://www.sifive.com/products/risc-v-core-ip/u54-mc/

The company is planning on releasing a development board next year.

 

[ultimatebob]

Probably not, since the connector would take up extra precious space on the board. If we're lucky, they might finally put USB 3 ports on the next model so we can attach faster storage that way.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Probably not, since the connector would take up extra precious space on the board. If we're lucky, they might finally put USB 3 ports on the next model so we can attach faster storage that way.

I agree, maybe not on the standard version that is sold so often.
But the raspbery pi organisation also sells these raspberry pi compute module cards that allow a customer to develop the (motherboard) pcb with all the interfaces themselves.
If in the future a sata controller is present on the soc and routed to pins that would be a very interesting and viable solution.
I think the demand would be so great and increasing for years because all of a sudden it is also interesting for companies.

Olimex sells an allwinner dualcore A20 based board that has an SATA controller but it would be great for support and adoption if the next raspberry pi derivative would have a sata controller.

 

[sdifox]

I imagine it will be the same family of soc so the usb bus will still be the limitation, regardless of which io interface you stick on it.

Remember, it's a learning platform. But if they decide to go with usb 3.0 it should provide enough bandwidth.

But there are plenty of SBCs to choose from.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Would love to see a sata port too, or even USB 3.0. Would also be nice if it was not shared with ethernet. But I guess it's starting to ask for a lot for something that cheap.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Would love to see a sata port too, or even USB 3.0. Would also be nice if it was not shared with ethernet. But I guess it's starting to ask for a lot for something that cheap.

I can't think USB3 could cost that much to implement today. It'd certainly remove some, if not most, of the pi's weak points.