Pintry-X2 – a Raspberry Pi CM4 Based NAS Device With Support for Up to 2 Drives

Storage requires critical consideration when building a data management and network project, especially to manage unexpected network growth. This is the reason behind the Pintry-X2 – Network Attached Storage (NAS), released by hardware Engineer Cezar Chirila to help network engineers handle the enormous storage demand of network projects with extra drives.

The two-bay NAS, Pintry-X2 is built around Raspberry Pi CM4 with ASMedia AS1061 PCle to SATA bridge converter that links “up to 2 drives (3.5’/2.5′ HDD or 2.5′ SSD) to the SoM running a Linux based OS (Raspberry Pi OS)”, says Cezar. Compatible with both the Raspberry Pi -CM4 and -CM4 Lite variants, the carrier board shows two ASM1061 powered SATA ports for HDDs or SSDs interfacing, a USB 2.0 host port, and a micro-USB port for updating the eMMc flash of the CM. The Pintry-X2 also features a GPIO header, a power switch, a GigE port for cameras, and two fans headers with pulse-width modulation (PWM) for speed control. The Carrier board takes a 12V voltage supply via a custom port at 6A maximum input current. For thermal management, the device comes with a RAM heatsink on the ASM1061 IC.

Key Features and Specifications of the Pintry-X2:

• SOM: Supports both Raspberry Pi CM4 and – CM4 lite variants
• Storage:
  • 2x ASM1061 powered SATA ports
  • Supports both 2.5′ and 3.5′ HDDs/SSDs but so far it has only been tested with 2.5′ SSDs: Western Digital WDS500G2B0A
• Power Supply: 12V/6A input (max 5A, required for 3.5′ drives)
• Expansion:
  • 2 x Fan headers (PWM pin-connected, Tach pin unconnected)
  • USB 2.0 host port (for USB device connections)
  • Micro-USB device port (for updating the eMMC of the CM4)
  • Gige Port (for cameras interfacing)
  • GPIO header (for access to various GPIO including “gpio-fan”)
• Misc: Power switch, relays, RAM heatsink.

Talking about software, the Pintry-X2 is open source and can run Linux-based OS like – Raspberry Pi OS including the RPI OS Lite. The device comes with an updated Kernel with inbuilt SATA support to allow for the use of SATA drives with the CM4 without having to recompile the kernel with additional SATA protocol. Detailed documentation such as Κicad 6.0 project, manufacturing, and assembly file, and source code points to Cezar-Pintry GitHub repository.

The Pintry-X2 comes alongside a simple 3D printable enclosure design – although support is for 2.5′ drives only, with vents and space to attach an optional 60mm fan for better thermal management.

The Engineer says the released version, labeled V1.1, has not been built and tested, but it includes all the errors corrected after testing its first version, V1.0 – built, tested, and functioning.

More information on the Pintry-X2 can be found on CezarChirila’s website

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