Geekworm X820 Raspberry Pi SATA HDD/SSD Storage Expansion Board USB 3.0 interface Compatible with 2.5 inch SATA HDD/SSD for Raspberry pi 3 Model B/2B/B+/A+

As far as build quality, I would say that everything looks good. No sloppy solder joints. The board looks good. Unfortunately my unit came with a damaged 5v connector. The pins look fine, just a piece of the plastic fitting snapped off. I would have to say that this is due to the lack of padding in the box. This item needs to be packaged with some type of bubble wrap or foam to prevent damage like this. In my last photo you can see that one of the hdd/sdd mounting holes has burrs/is stripped. The other threaded hole seems to be fine. I'll be contacting the seller in an effort to find a solution but for now everything arrived as listed in the item's description.

I own about 3 of these and one for the pi4 and all i can say is that this is an add on that i whole heartedly recommend if you have a raspberrypi3/b+ and would like to make a server out of it. This is a disk board that would allow for any 2.5inch drive and or SSD to be mounted and used by the pi. Pair this with software that can allow you to boot from the hdd and you'll have an even better experience, mind you as far as speed goes the usb port is what would dictate this, so 3.0 speeds are your theoretical limits since itll also depend on the speed of the drive as well.. but, aside from the obvious, It is vital you use this with their power supply which is sold separately, and as someone who failed to do this, i can tell you that it is actually a fire hazard to use this with the wrong power supply. But after you've gotten the right one, you will not be disappointed with this product. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to make an interesting project with this and the pi.

Another two day delay in trying to get this to work while waiting on a power supply. The listing says that the board provides power to the Pi. That can't happen without a power supply, which is not included. To be fair the listing does not say it has a power supply included. There is an included items list at the end that shows a HDMI adapter, which is not included nor, as far as I can tell, needed.I was also not able to mount a 2.5" 500 Mb Samsung HDD to this board. The holes that the screws go through to attach the HDD are threaded. This makes it a matter of luck if the screws will go into the bottom of the drive. I don't seem to have that luck.Lastly, the orientation of this adapter board is at a right angle to the world of Raspberry Pi components. You will not be able to fit this into a stack-able setup like the "dog bone" setups or any other arrangement that I have yet seen. I note that there is an enclosure in the pipeline, as far as a previous question was answered, but for now the footprint of this adapter is "unique". The somewhat odd placement of the USB jumper leaves you wondering if it is needed or if a standard USB cable would work as well. At least that would allow you to turn the Pi back to the normal orientation.5/1/19 Update: I've been running a 1TB SSD on this board along with the case that you can get here on Amazon for nearly 6 months now. I think that the cooling fan on the case may have dropped out, but it doesn't seen to have affected the system in the least. I use it as a boot and odd stuff drive for my wireless home file server. The rest of the file server is set up with external HDD's.The USB 2.0 transfer rates are limits imposed by the 3B+, and for a wireless server for right at $200, I'm pleased. I used the 3.0 transfer exactly once - to write the Raspbian system to the SSD.

I purchased the X820 unit on January 30th, 2019. It came in the mail two days later. The device was bought to replace a USB 3.0 powered hub that connected the 2.5” hard drive to a Raspberry Pi. Using the online instructions I assembled the RPi, a working hard drive, and the X820 and applied power. When I powered up the RPi it did not see/recognize the hard drive. I powered down two and restarted it; the drive was not recognized. In the instructions, it states that you can use the X820 and hard drive as an external hard drive for a PC. I set up the X820 as such. The PC did not recognize the driver either. I removed the hard drive and placed it in two known working external USB 3.0 enclosure. The drive didn’t work in either enclosure. The X820 took out my 500G hard drive.After contacting the customer support on Feb 2nd, and exchanging several emails spanning several days, they agreed to replace the X820 once they determine it didn’t work. I agreed to send it back however it had to be sent back to China, not within the USA. It took just over 16 days for it get there, three days for testing, confirming the failed X820, and another 18 days for it to be sent back to me.When it arrived I used an old 80G hard drive to test the X820. Starting from the basic configuration and working up I tested the X820, hard drive, and then the RPi. Finally almost two months later I got a working X820.Bottom line: I'm happy with the product, been using it for a few months now, just not with the process of returning.

This did allow me to hook up a SATA SSD, which dramatically improved the speed and reliability of the Pi that was using it. However, the RF noise from the USB connection caused everything on RF within a few meters of it to be horribly negatively affected. Unfortunate, since I was trying to use this for my Home Assistant. It did improve boot times and reliability for the Home Assistant itself, but the Zigbee and Z-Wave stick that was plugged into it basically became useless. Switched back to the SD card, the problem went away. Bummer.