FriendlyElec CM3588

The FriendlyElec (NanoPC) CM3588 is a RK3588 based solution with 4/8/16GB LPDDR4x memory and 0/64GB eMMC flash storage. The inital carrier board released with the CM3588 features 4x M.2 NVMe SSD slots (PCIe 3.0 x1 each) and a 2.5gbps RJ45 port, making it an attractive option for a low powered silent NAS at $130/$145/$174 depending on which RAM configuration you purchase.

I ordered this in response to the LTT video. I have seen a few people struggling to configure these, and figured I would offer some basic guides in order to get those who need some assistance on getting their NAS up and going.

I will be using the precompiled Debian 12 installer found here. ( 01_Official images > 02_SD-to-eMMC images > rk3588-eflasher-debian-bookworm-core-6.1-arm64-xxxxxxxx.img.gz)

The FriendlyElec Wiki is actually pretty good, but it can feel like a wall of text/commands to run and can be overwhelming to a new user.

Want to power this over POE+? I used this adapter, and verified it supplies up to 25 watts and passes 2.5gbps.

Typical power consumption with 4 Micron 2300 NVMe drives and (2) Noctua NF-A4x10 fans @ 5V:

idle = ~5w idle
"typical" load = ~7-15w
stress testing CPU and SSDs = ~20-23w

I have found that transfering at linerate (2.5gbps) uses about 35% CPU and ~15-20w in my testing.

I remixed sgofferj's CM3588-NAS-case to accomadate the case fan screws (M5.5) that come with the Noctua fans. You can find that here.

Installing an OS

Since I bought a 8GB RAM/64GB eMMC model, I will be using an SD to eMMC install image for this guide. You will need a MicroSD card that is 8GB or larger.

1) Download Debian 12 Bookworm Core from here. ( 01_Official images > 02_SD-to-eMMC images > rk3588-eflasher-debian-bookworm-core-6.1-arm64-xxxxxxxx.img.gz) 2) Use a tool like 7Zip, to extract the .img file 3) Use Balena Etcher to write the image to the SD card. 4) Install the SD card into the CM3588 NAS, then power the unit on. 5) If you use one of the HDMI out ports, you can track the progress. Otherwise you can wait ~5 minutes (mine consistently takes around 80 seconds to install). 6) Power down the unit, then power it back on. 7) If you have HDMI hooked up, you should be prompted at the main login screen. If you want to use SSH, scan your network or check your router/DHCP server for the device's IP address.

Configuring Debian 12

There are 2 accounts by default.

root/fa
pi/pi (in the sudoers group)

In this guide we will be:

Changing root password
Deleting default/Pi user
Creating a new user
Disabling root SSH logins
Reconfiguring Apt sources
Compiling linux-headers for DKMS
Installing ZFS
Other guides

Use your favorite tool to SSH into the unit.

Changing root password

passwd

Enter a new password, and confirm.

Delete default user

We are going to create our own user, so we don't need this one.

deluser pi

Create a new user

I am using nas in this example, but feel free to name it whatever you want, then we will add it to sudoers group

useradd nas

passwd nas

usermod -aG sudo nas

Disabling root SSH logins

This is for security, as the username is always root and the access rights are unlimited.

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Go to line 33, change PermitRootLogin yes to PermitRootLogin no.

systemctl restart sshd
exit

SSH back in as your newly created user

Reconfigure Apt sources

By default the sources file comes with a mirror that is based out of China. While this is fine, it would be much faster if you used the local Debian apt sources. So we will change them back. I have commented them out for now.

mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.old
nano /etc/apt/sources.list

#deb https://mirrors.aliyun.com/debian bookworm main non-free contrib
#deb-src https://mirrors.aliyun.com/debian bookworm main non-free contrib
#deb https://mirrors.aliyun.com/debian-security bookworm-security main
#deb-src https://mirrors.aliyun.com/debian-security bookworm-security main
#deb https://mirrors.aliyun.com/debian bookworm-backports main non-free contrib
#deb-src https://mirrors.aliyun.com/debian bookworm-backports main non-free contrib

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ bookworm-security main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ bookworm-security main non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports main non-free-firmware

Compiling linux-headers for DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support)

In order to install ZFS, we first need to install linux headers for our kernel to add DKMS support.

Luckily, pre-compiled headers can already be found in /opt/archives

sudo -i
dpkg -i /opt/archives/linux-headers-6.1.57_6.1.57-11_arm64.deb

Installing ZFS

Now that we have Linux headers, we can use apt to install ZFS

sudo apt install zfs-dkms
sudo apt install zfsutils-linux

Now that ZFS is installed, we will try to run a command to test that ZFS and DKMS are actually functional.

zpool status

If this works, it will report that we have 0 pools. If you get an error that says: "The ZFS modules are not loaded. Try running '/sbin/modprobe zfs' as root to load them", that means DKMS isn't working properly and you likely missed a step up above or it failed to compile, which should have given you an error.

Now that we have ZFS working, we can create our ZFS pool. You have a few options, depending on how much redundancy or performance you want. I would recommend the following options, although there are a few more. You will have to check the ZFS documenation for any other array types.

RAIDZ1 (RAID 5)

zpool create mypool raidz nvme0n1 nvme1n1 nvme2n1 nvme3n1

Mirror (RAID 1)

zpool create mypool mirror nvme0n1 nvme1n1 nvme2n1 nvme3n1

Striped Mirror (RAID 10)

zpool create mypool mirror nvme0n1 nvme1n1 mirror nvme2n1 nvme3n1

Now if we run zpool status we should get something like this:

$zpool status
  pool: mypool
 state: ONLINE
config:

        NAME         STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        mypool       ONLINE       0     0     0
          raidz1-0   ONLINE       0     0     0
            nvme0n1  ONLINE       0     0     0
            nvme1n1  ONLINE       0     0     0
            nvme2n1  ONLINE       0     0     0
            nvme3n1  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

The array will be mounted at /mypool (or whatever you named your pool). You can move the mountpoint to a different location:

zfs set mountpoint=/mnt/storage mypool

Since this is all SSD array, I recommend enabling autotrim. Trim marks the invalid data and tells the SSD to ignore it during the garbage collection process, allowing your SSD to do some cleanup on its end.

zpool set autotrim=on mypool

Once this is complete, you will be ready to install whatever you would like.

DukeChocula / CM3588

readme