[Noisebridge-discuss] Raspberry Pi project

[Torrie Fischer]

For a prototype, yeah, using an RPI would be the sweet spot.

If you want to build hardware that is dedicated to just SD to external 
harddrive transfer and just getting started in hardware, you probably don't 
want to jump in head-first with building a board with full embedded linux on 
it. You'd be able to make the thing super cheap with less overhead than full 
linux with:

* Some microcontroller
* An SD card socket
* SATA socket
* Implementing SATA and MMC either through another chip or implementing 
directly on the microcontroller.

After that you'll stare longingly at the OMAP 5912 and get caught with the bug 
of embedded electronics engineering.

Here's some teaser links to get you moving:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/pls/simplified_specs/part1_410.pdf
http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/spru765a/spru765a.pdf

On Friday, November 14, 2014 09:15:07 AM Danny Leavitt wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I just joined the mailing list, so hopefully a post like this is ok to the
> list. I'd like to start a project to transfer data from an SD card to an
> external hard drive. I'm a programmer and have never worked with hardware
> before. With a little research it looks like the Raspberry Pi B might be my
> best bet (2 USB I/Os, Linux and memory for buffer during the data transfer.
> Would this be the best choice? Anyone with experience manufacturing have an
> idea what it would vaguely cost to mass produce something like this with
> embedded linux and 2 USBs?
> 
> Also, are Raspberry Pi Bs available for purchase at Noisebridge? If not,
> anywhere in the city I can buy one?
> 
> Danny