Cheap embedded board with decent storage options

Hello guys.

I want to make a small form-factor storage server ...

There are lots of boards with USB2/SDcard - but if you want to get a little better storage performance what are the options ?

A board with USB3 would be nice.

I'm not familiar with all the options, but I hope someone can point me in the right direction with some suggestions.

A usb boxed hard drive fitted to a raspberry pi?

Originally Posted by business_kid A usb boxed hard drive fitted to a raspberry pi?

Raspberry Pi does not feature USB3 .. I feel like USB2 is kinda slow ... :/ That is why I wanted something a bit better than that ...

You're right - usb2 is slower. But implementations vary greatly and some chipsets have unseen bottlenecks. If you have a Pi, you should try a hdparm and a dd test and take the slower result.

But as long as it's faster than your network, does it matter? USB2 did at least 12MB/S on anything I have tried (Massive copies of files from disk A to disk B on various motherboards back some years for a job I had). That would handle a 100Mb/S network connection.

If storage performance is of concern, go for one of the boards with SATA connector, like the Cubietech Cubietruck or the Olimex OlinuXino Micro A20.
But of course you should consider the advice from business_kid and determine where your bottlenecks are.