Current state of SATA drive support

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by mrblenny, Mar 2, 2014.

  1. mrblenny

    mrblenny New Member

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    Hello,

    I was just wondering if anyone could provide some information re: current SATA drive support on a quad board.

    In particular:

    - Can I expect almost any SATA drive to work (assuming correct power, etc supplied)?
    - Is there a difference between Ubuntu 11.10 & 12.04 re: number of drives supported?
    - Does the udoo have a 'BIOS' like normal PCs so I can check if it is seeing the hardware a low level (and thus eliminate OS as culprit)
    - I keep seeing references to u-boot, if I download a ubuntu image from the udoo site (either 11.10 or 12.04) does this mean I have the 'latest' u-boot version?

    The reason for my interest is that I have a 2.5" SATA HDD that works perfectly in my desktop PC, but when connected to udoo with 11.10 I cannot see it in gparted. (External USB drives are detected OK). Note, the drive is powered correctly.

    I will try 12.04 tomorrow just for kicks, however the SDK I need has a reasonable chance of not working on 12.04 so that might not help anyway (otherwise I would have done it already!). A new version of the SDK is out for 12.04, but it uses hard float which is not supported on the udoo 12.04 ubuntu image, hence why I am still running 11.10.

    Thanks for any information, sorry if this is on the website or wiki, I have dredged through pages of search results with not much luck (except seeing that others occasionally have SATA drives not work, others have them work easy...)

    Cheers,
    Damian
     
  2. LDighera

    LDighera UDOOer

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    Hello Damian,

    I have found that Ubuntu Studio (upgraded to 13.10) provides "plug-and-play" access to an Intel 2-1/2" 240GB SSD. It was just a matter of connecting the cables, and all functions as expected, partitioning, mounting, etc.

    The difficulty I'm having is finding a definitive tutorial on how to boot Ubuntu Studio from the SATA drive. I've found a lot of forum messages and web pages, that discuss the subject, but I've been unsuccessful in booting the SATA drive so far. I'd like to see specific instructions on how to prepare the SATA drive, from an image file, or partitioning, what to do with U-boot on the SD card and on the SATA drive, etc.

    In any event, I can tell you, that throughput on the SSD SATA drive is considerably faster than on a Sony SDHC micro-SD card rated at 40 MB/s. And chroot works.

    Best regards,
    Larry
     
  3. mrblenny

    mrblenny New Member

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    Thanks for the info Larry. It might just have to be something I come back to later since the last version of Ubuntu Studio (12.04) I installed had no internet access, and after a couple of hours trying to either a) get internet working OR b) figure out how to manually install packages + dependencies I removed it and went back to 11.10. (As an aside, being new to Linux I was surprised at how big an issue b) is, there are workarounds and programs but there was always something unique to my setup which prevented them from working).

    Anyway, I just ran some tests with a SD card rated at 60 MB/s write and it performed better, but was still only getting around 15-18 MB/s based on the throughput I observed. Perhaps the SD card reader shares the same bus as the USB ports (which would max out at 35 MB/s I believe)?? SATA seems to be the way to go, getting it to work is another thing. I am thinking of getting an Intel NUC box in the near future. Small, i5 CPU + all the goodies.
     
  4. mkopack

    mkopack Member

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    I assume you have looked at this:

    http://www.elinux.org/UDOO_boot_from_sata

    You MUST still keep the microSD card in to begin the boot process, but you can have the uboot then kick over to the SATA drive at that point.
     
  5. mkopack

    mkopack Member

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  6. LDighera

    LDighera UDOOer

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    Re: Current state of SATA drive support [WORKING]

    Thank you very much for your assistance with those two links.

    First I initialized the SATA SSD with Windows8 'Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management'.

    Then I used the Ubuntu Studio 'gparted' utility to create partition 1 on the SATA SSD formatted with ext4 filesystem.

    Then, I followed the directions in your first link http://www.elinux.org/UDOO_boot_from_sata using the "existing Linux System" method with the SATA SSD automounted on /media/ubuntu/SSD_root and the SD card mounted on /mnt and issued the cp command:
    Code:
    mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
    cd /mnt
    cp -rvpP * /media/ubuntu/SSD_root/
    to transfer the contents of the SD card to the SATA SSD.

    Then, I put the Ubuntu Studio SD card back into the Udoo Quad, and applied power, and cut-and-pasted the commands tibmeister kindly provided in your second link http://udoo.org/forum/boot-2013-boot-from-sata-t706.html like this:
    Code:
    U-Boot 2013.10-rc3 (Jan 20 2014 - 13:33:34)
    
    CPU:   Freescale i.MX6Q rev1.2 at 792 MHz
    Reset cause: WDOG
    Board: UDOO
    DRAM:  1 GiB
    MMC:   FSL_SDHC: 0
    auto-detected panel HDMI
    Display: HDMI (1024x768)
    In:    serial
    Out:   serial
    Err:   serial
    Net:   using phy at 6
    FEC [PRIME]
    Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
    UDOO board => setenv sataroot "/dev/sda1"
    UDOO board => setenv satadev 0
    UDOO board => setenv satapart 1
    UDOO board => setenv loaduimagesata 'ext2load sata ${satadev}:${satapart} ${loadaddr} ${uimage}'
    UDOO board => setenv sataargs 'setenv bootargs console=${console},${baudrate} root=${sataroot} ${hdmi_patch} fbmem=24M video=mxcfb0:dev=hdmi,1920x1080M@60,bpp=32'
    UDOO board => setenv sataboot 'echo Booting from sata ...; run sataargs ; bootm'
    UDOO board => setenv bootcmd 'sata dev ${satadev}; run loaduimagesata; run sataboot;'
    UDOO board => saveenv
    Saving Environment to MMC...
    Writing to MMC(0)... done
    UDOO board => reset
    resetting ...
    
    and was greeted with:

    Code:
    U-Boot 2013.10-rc3 (Jan 20 2014 - 13:33:34)
    
    CPU:   Freescale i.MX6Q rev1.2 at 792 MHz
    Reset cause: WDOG
    Board: UDOO
    DRAM:  1 GiB
    MMC:   FSL_SDHC: 0
    auto-detected panel HDMI
    Display: HDMI (1024x768)
    In:    serial
    Out:   serial
    Err:   serial
    Net:   using phy at 6
    FEC [PRIME]
    Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
    AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 1 ports 3 Gbps 0x1 impl SATA mode
    flags: ncq stag pm led clo only pmp pio slum part
    SATA Device Info:
    S/N: CVCV249501B4240CGN
    Product model number: INTEL SSDSC2CW240A3
    Firmware version: 400i
    Capacity: 468862128 sectors
    
    SATA device 0: Model: INTEL SSDSC2CW240A3 Firm: 400i Ser#: CVCV249501B4240CGN
                Type: Hard Disk
                Supports 48-bit addressing
                Capacity: 228936.5 MB = 223.5 GB (468862128 x 512)
    ... is now current device
    4372788 bytes read in 73 ms (57.1 MiB/s)
    Booting from sata ...
    ## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 12000000 ...
       Image Name:   Linux-3.0.35
       Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
       Data Size:    4372724 Bytes = 4.2 MiB
       Load Address: 10008000
       Entry Point:  10008000
       Verifying Checksum ... OK
       Loading Kernel Image ... OK
    
    Starting kernel ...
    
    [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
    [    0.000000] Linux version 3.0.35 (udoo@ubuntu) (gcc version 4.4.4 (4.4.4_09.06.2010) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Dec 16 14:46:12 CET 2013
    [    0.000000] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [412fc09a] revision 10 (ARMv7), cr=10c53c7d
    [    0.000000] CPU: VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT aliasing instruction cache
    [    0.000000] Machine: SECO i.Mx6 UDOO Board
    [    0.000000] Kernel ver: v. 116
    [    0.000000] Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writealloc
    [    0.000000] CPU identified as i.MX6Q, silicon rev 1.2
    [    0.000000] PERCPU: Embedded 7 pages/cpu @8c0080[...]
    I must admit that I was a bit astonished to successfully boot from SATA, given that I was running Ubuntu Studio, the SATA drive was formatted ext4, and I hadn't installed U-boot on the SATA drive.
    Code:
    /root (mxc1) # uname -a
    Linux udoo-studio-hfp 3.0.35 #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Dec 16 14:46:12 CET 2013 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
    I can't thank you enough for your assistance.

    Best regards,
    Larry
     
  7. mkopack

    mkopack Member

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    Awesome! glad you got it working!

    Yeah, you don't need UDoo on the SATA because the boot is still being kicked off by the SD card (which DOES have the Uboot on it). Once the uboot starts up off the SD it then points to the SATA drive to kick off loading the kernel and the root filesystem.
     
  8. winsonlcc

    winsonlcc New Member

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    Anybody can help? How to make a HDD as external storage? I try to plug in SATA port and with power cable. Nothing detect. If I using SATA-USB adapter then is detect.
    Please help. thanks
     
  9. SO_yeah

    SO_yeah New Member

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    @ winsonic
    once connected your SATA HDD (or SSD) has to appear in this list:

    Code:
     sudo fdisk -l 
    catch the proper /dev path and do the usual "sudo mount" procedure.
    now you should see the new entry:

    Code:
     df -h 
    if you like, you could add such new entry to /etc/fstab for automagic mount at startup.
     
  10. winsonlcc

    winsonlcc New Member

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    Hi Thanks .... i manage to detect the HDD. :)
    It due to the boot device default point for HDD. So no matter how I try it won't plug and play and display sda :)
     
  11. fetcher

    fetcher Member

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    One limitation I've noticed on the Udoo, at least when running a 3.0.35 kernel is that there is no SATA hot-plug support, despite the interface running in AHCI mode which would normally (on PCs) support this. So, a hard drive must already be present at boot time in order to be recognized.

    Also, if the drive and bus are put into power-saving mode (suspending SATA clock until the drive is accessed),

    # echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy

    This works fine, and reduces standby power use by about 500-700mW with my Toshiba 1TB drive with minimal performance loss, but if it remains in effect across a reboot, it causes the drive not to be detected any longer on kernel restart. At that point the /sys control no longer works, since Freescale's AHCI driver unloads itself if it doesn't see an HD, so the only way to recover is power-cycling the disk (forcing it out of power saving state) and then rebooting again.

    Setting link power mode back to normal before a reboot avoids this:

    # echo max_performance > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy

    (there is a medium_power setting also, which I haven't tried).
     
  12. Andrea Rovai

    Andrea Rovai Well-Known Member

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    Hi there fetcher,
    thanks, I've added it among the other problems to be solved in the next betas.
    Cheers
     
  13. mlckovsky

    mlckovsky New Member

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    I was searching,but did not found anything confidential. So I will ask in this thread as it seems to be still alive.
    I would like to find out what is maximum supported size of sata drive?
    Poster above mentioned 1TB, but how about 2 or 3TB?
    I use original Lubuntu 12.04 distribution available on udoo.org

    Thank you in advance for any feedback! Miro
     
  14. vpeter

    vpeter Active Member

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    Send me few disks and I will test :rolleyes:
     
  15. Andrea Rovai

    Andrea Rovai Well-Known Member

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    I agree with vpeter :) Never tried with such huge drives actually.
     
  16. mlckovsky

    mlckovsky New Member

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    You can always buy one if you want to
    But I will test for sure 1tb & 3tb when JTS connector arrive. But I do not own 2tb,so if 3tb not supported, 2tb will be still unclear. hopefully I won't forget and will let you know result of my trial.
    Regards Miro
     
  17. vpeter

    vpeter Active Member

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    Sure. Maybe I should buy new TV too. O wait, let me check my bank account :(

    Just ignore this post...
     
    idorel77 and Andrea Rovai like this.
  18. mlckovsky

    mlckovsky New Member

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    Hi there,

    as I promised here is my trial result:
    1TB wd red and 3TB seagate SV35 mounted without any issue! 100% happy
    Hope this helps to other. Regards Miro
     
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