256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?

[torne]

Yes, so the way to copy the files I was suggesting is "reboot into the original firmware".

How does that work? So you reboot into OF, then plug it into computer thru USB, then what? I want to copy my FALC's to the mSATA drive.  Hint please ....

You reboot into the OF, then plug it in, then it appears as a drive exactly as it always does. What do you mean, "then what"?

[torne]

This is what I did. I restored the ipod using the iTunes after the 256GB  mSATA drive was installed. Then I installed the Rockbox using the Utility, and followed immediately by replacing the rockbox folder with the test build. Booted to RB, then it hung while trying to play a flac file. Forced a reboot and everything went down hill from there with all kinds problems (kept rebooting, asking for restore, saying low battery and please wait, etc..). So I gave it up and restored it to the apple OF. Well, at least I have a working 250GB mSATA ipod running on the OF.

The device I have also frequently complains about low battery; possibly the adapter draws too much power during boot. That happens anyway even without Rockbox at all

Once it crashes somewhere while potentially doing disk access then you need to check the filesystem, since there's always an opportunity for it to have been destroyed there, which can cause any number of problems later. Did you actually try the regular unmodified build at all to see if it actually has the same problem as the device I have?

[DMinor]

This is what I did. I restored the ipod using the iTunes after the 256GB  mSATA drive was installed. Then I installed the Rockbox using the Utility, and followed immediately by replacing the rockbox folder with the test build. Booted to RB, then it hung while trying to play a flac file. Forced a reboot and everything went down hill from there with all kinds problems (kept rebooting, asking for restore, saying low battery and please wait, etc..). So I gave it up and restored it to the apple OF. Well, at least I have a working 250GB mSATA ipod running on the OF.

The device I have also frequently complains about low battery; possibly the adapter draws too much power during boot. That happens anyway even without Rockbox at all

Once it crashes somewhere while potentially doing disk access then you need to check the filesystem, since there's always an opportunity for it to have been destroyed there, which can cause any number of problems later. Did you actually try the regular unmodified build at all to see if it actually has the same problem as the device I have?

No I didn't attempt to boot into the regular unmodified build as it's been confirmed not working by a few head-fi'ers. After this try, I intend to believe there are some serious issues with the adapter/mSATA.

Thanks for all your efforts , but I give up on this. 

[cereal_killer]

I tried the test build provided in this thread. As predicted by torne, I encountered no problems or any differences in performance of my unmodified iPod Video 80GB.

I copied several files to the player, browsed through files, played some mp3s and played some games while listening to music, but I noticed no problems or differences compared to the Rockbox 3.13 I am currently running on my iPod. On my laptop which is running Windows XP, USB connection seemed to establish a little slower and less "accurate" using the test build though.

[Reima]

I tried the test build in this thread on my iPod with a 240GB msata. Rockbox loads but will not initialize the database, it gets stuck on "Building database... 0 found(PREV to return).When I try to play a music file it gets stuck on "loading". Eventually I got "Error accessing playlist control file (-4).
I cannot get the patch, when I click on the link I get "ERROR: Possible problem with your *.gwt.xml module file.....
USB does not work

[torne]

I'm going to experiment a little more next week with DMA settings, but other than that I'm basically out of ideas and I'm going to be sending this ipod back to the owner. Sorry everyone, but I really don't have much time/motivation to work on this any more and I am out of things to try. If tweaking the timings back to the standard values doesn't work then I'm not sure what else will.

[Reima]

I'm going to experiment a little more next week with DMA settings, but other than that I'm basically out of ideas and I'm going to be sending this ipod back to the owner. Sorry everyone, but I really don't have much time/motivation to work on this any more and I am out of things to try. If tweaking the timings back to the standard values doesn't work then I'm not sure what else will.

Any progress with this?

[torne]

Nothing I tried helped any more with the device I had. The patch I wrote to adjust the timings back to the standard values may well work for some people, but it doesn't resolve all the issues with the specific drive/adapter I was testing. I've returned the ipod to the owner now, and am unlikely to work on this further; we may or may not actually commit the patch, someone needs to do a thorough test of the performance impact on a regular iPod drive..

[LFF]

THANK YOU TORNE!!!!!

I've had a 5G iPod video with a 256GB Super Talent SSD in storage for over a year now and it has NEVER worked...at least until I tried the patch you released.

It's been working like a charm for the past few hours with NO problems.

I'll keep you posted if it stops working or if I encounter any problems but so far...so good. :-)   

[beyondwind]

I have just patched rockbox for SSDs, have tested on iPod 5/5.5th gen, 32/64mb model, with 30gb stock hdd or 240GB crucial m500 SSD.

firmware and patch:
http://beyondwind.duckdns.org/downloads/

Very fast aligned read/write with UDMA-4.

test_disk SPEED TEST
CPU clock: 30000000 Hz
--------------------
Create: 26 files/s
Open: 716 files/s
Dirscan: 80024 files/s
Delete: 73 files/s
--------------------
Create (512,A): 2781 KB/s
Write (512,A): 2847 KB/s
Read (512,A): 1562 KB/s
--------------------
Create (512,U): 2349 KB/s
Write (512,U): 2397 KB/s
Read (512,U): 1364 KB/s
--------------------
Create (4096,A): 8316 KB/s
Write (4096,A): 8573 KB/s
Read (4096,A): 9418 KB/s
--------------------
Create (4096,U): 3708 KB/s
Write (4096,U): 3791 KB/s
Read (4096,U): 1929 KB/s
--------------------
Create (1048576,A): 12405 KB/s
Write (1048576,A): 12813 KB/s
Read (1048576,A): 41642 KB/s
--------------------
Create (1048576,U): 4258 KB/s
Write (1048576,U): 4313 KB/s
Read (1048576,U): 2080 KB/s

[[Saint]]

Thank you for your contribution beyondwind, much appreciated.

In order to greatly increase the odds of this submission making it into the repository, you should put up this patch on the gerrit review system. The wiki can assist you in setting up git to use gerrit should you need it.

You could also consider promoting the binary via the Unsupported Builds section of the forum.


[Saint]

[cereal_killer]

That is great news. Thanks beyondwind.

So does that mean, that rockbox works now on the iPod 5/5.5th gen. with mSATA SSDs and mSATA to ZIF adapters in general, or only with the crucial m500 SSDs? Which adapt or did you use beyondwind?

There have been some heat issues reported when using a mSATA SSD and the adapt or? Is this still being true?

Greetings,

c_k

[DKRTech]

I would love to add Rockbox to my mSATA ZIP adapted ipod video 5.5g.

I tried to install rockbox, got that ATA -11 error. Then I tried searching the forums, and I found this thread.
And literally the day I installed the mSATA, and got it restored with apple's OF. Its fine for now, but I REALLY
would die to have rockbox on this... Then I found beyondwind's post, and was floored that somebody figured
it out the day I tried to find a solution!

But the bad news is, I cant get it to work

Scratch that, I was able to install by restoring the ipod after the error to original ipod firmware. Then I downloaded the rockbox ulitity, ran just the bootloader install, and used your .rockbox zip instead of trying to "overwrite" the existing installed rockbox. Worked like a charm!

Thanks beyond!!!

[wxharry1031]

I have just patched rockbox for SSDs, have tested on iPod 5/5.5th gen, 32/64mb model, with 30gb stock hdd or 240GB crucial m500 SSD.

firmware and patch:
http://beyondwind.duckdns.org/downloads/

Very fast aligned read/write with UDMA-4.

test_disk SPEED TEST
CPU clock: 30000000 Hz
--------------------
Create: 26 files/s
Open: 716 files/s
Dirscan: 80024 files/s
Delete: 73 files/s
--------------------
Create (512,A): 2781 KB/s
Write (512,A): 2847 KB/s
Read (512,A): 1562 KB/s
--------------------
Create (512,U): 2349 KB/s
Write (512,U): 2397 KB/s
Read (512,U): 1364 KB/s
--------------------
Create (4096,A): 8316 KB/s
Write (4096,A): 8573 KB/s
Read (4096,A): 9418 KB/s
--------------------
Create (4096,U): 3708 KB/s
Write (4096,U): 3791 KB/s
Read (4096,U): 1929 KB/s
--------------------
Create (1048576,A): 12405 KB/s
Write (1048576,A): 12813 KB/s
Read (1048576,A): 41642 KB/s
--------------------
Create (1048576,U): 4258 KB/s
Write (1048576,U): 4313 KB/s
Read (1048576,U): 2080 KB/s

I download your files but I don't know how to use the file ipod5g_msata_mod.patch.
What should I do to make this patch file to my ipod video?

[[Saint]]

You should not realistically need to do anything at all.

However, if you are dead set on trying this patch (which having a look seems questionable at best), you will need to set up a development environment, compile the toolchain for your host, apply the patch, and then compile Rockbox.

Note that if you do so, you will no longer be able to use the officially supplied binaries as doing so would replace the patched binary and undo your work, and that you will not be eligible for support unless you can verify that the issue(s) you encounter are present in an official binary. If you go down this road you will need to compile your own binaries when you want updates.


[Saint]