Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Hardware => Topic started by: DMinor on December 30, 2012, 10:43:41 PM

Title: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on December 30, 2012, 10:43:41 PM
Hi,

I am a newbie to the forum and please be easy on me if I am asking stupid questions.

First let me say thank you for making the amazing Rockbox available. It has certainly raised my experience to another level in enjoying  my music.

Here is what I am intending to do. I am going to try to replace my ipod 5g/5.5g HDD with a 256GB mSATA SSD using an adapter (mSATA to 40 pin ZIF). Technically can this be even possible to work with current Rockbox install? I love Rockbox (can't live without it) and also want to put in a 256GB SSD in my ipod.

You feedback and help is much appreciated.

Respectfully,

DM
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: cereal_killer on January 02, 2013, 02:41:12 PM

I love Rockbox (can't live without it)
Same for me!!!  ;D

You can find discussions regarding the iPod Video and SSDs here (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,34245.msg215945.html#msg215945) and here (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,38197.msg205401.html#msg205401) too

The linked head-fi.org-thread is huge, so you might want to use the search feature there.

But from what I read, mSATA wont work with rockbox and the SSD drive that should work best would be the Super Talent DuraDrive ZT2. You don't need an adapter for this drive.

Good luck with your mod.

Greetings,

c_k
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on January 03, 2013, 03:38:40 PM
Thanks for the reply and info.

Yeah from what I have read so far no one has successfully installed Rockbox to a mSATA drive. But I am wondering if that has anything to do with the specific adapter (mSATA to ZIF) used or it's generally conflicting with the mSATA SSD.

Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Rave on February 11, 2013, 11:54:26 AM
Hello,

I am trying to do the same thing with my ipod video.

I have used a zif to MSATA adapter from ebay, and it works perfectly with the original ipod firmware (no fun) :(
But it does not work with the rockbox firmware, and gives a sata -11 error.

I am happy to send the adapter and MSATA drive to the devs if they can figure it out.

I'm sure its not too complex, and suspect it might be a PATA command that the MSATA doesn't have or doesnt like.

Thanks,

Rave.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: wodz on February 11, 2013, 12:35:21 PM
One of our devs got device with converter + mSATA SSD drive and is looking at the issue so there is hope in resolving the issue eventually.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Rave on February 11, 2013, 03:50:19 PM
Brilliant!

Many thanks for replying and i will await hopefully.

Thanks,

Kai.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: simfight on March 02, 2013, 08:18:16 AM
Hi =)
I found your post while using google to find something about "does an ipod work with 256gb"... Therefore I am maybe posting too late...

At first:
Why do you want a mSATA SSD?
Today this is built in my ipod (thick 5G): http://www.ebay.de/itm/181016077430

I am planning to use this now: http://www.supertalent.com/datasheets/6_10053.pdf (Super Talent DuraDrive ZT2 256GB )

It has the same kind of adaptor (ZIF)

Because of 240GB works (I am now using it...) the question is: Does this flash drive work?

It looks like it would FIT but it should WORK, too...

In Germany it is a little bit too expensive to try it with the risk it does not work =)
Price: http://alturl.com/6iwrk (now >230€)
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on March 03, 2013, 05:15:29 PM
An SSD with an ATA ZIF connector is more likely to work as it eliminates the SATA->ATA converter that seems to be the problem I'm investigating for the other people here, but unless you can find a report from someone who has used the exact same drive before we can't guarantee it will work.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: [Saint] on March 03, 2013, 09:58:16 PM
It occurred to me that those having issues should check the voltage of the SSD they are using.

There's no way the iPod can drive a 5V SSD, 3.3V - yes, 5V - nuh-uhhhhhh.


[Saint]
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on March 04, 2013, 03:36:56 AM
An SSD with an ATA ZIF connector is more likely to work as it eliminates the SATA->ATA converter that seems to be the problem I'm investigating for the other people here, but unless you can find a report from someone who has used the exact same drive before we can't guarantee it will work.
Torne any progress in your debugging on the mSATA issue?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on March 04, 2013, 07:35:17 AM
Haven't had time to look at it more, sorry.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on March 13, 2013, 02:32:21 PM
Haven't had time to look at it more, sorry.
  Do you think if the problem could be due to the hardware (i.e. mSATA drive and/or the adapter)?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on March 13, 2013, 07:48:53 PM
Not if it works in the Apple firmware, by definition.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Sigies on March 14, 2013, 01:45:21 PM
I presently have an 256GB mSATA on a iMOD and eagerly waiting to have it Rockboxed, as well.  THANKS!
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on March 16, 2013, 12:53:43 PM
OK, I have it booting and able to play music and generally operate, by just disabling the sanity check for whether the ATA registers are writable/readable correctly. It looks like the SATA interface doesn't implement reading back of the four address registers properly, and this is not normally important in usage of parallel ATA devices that aren't cdrom drives, which is why the original firmware works.

It still doesn't work properly, though: writing to the drive in Rockbox mostly doesn't work. It manages to save its settings, playlist control files, etc, but initialising the database hangs when it tries to write the database to disk, and while reading the device over usb works fine, you can't write to it.

So, I'll need to look at it some more, but this is a good start ;)

If you want to try this on your own device, comment out the call to check_registers() in firmware/drivers/ata.c and build; that was enough to get the one I have here to boot. But, don't expect it to work properly.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on March 16, 2013, 05:33:11 PM
Thanks Trone for the update and your efforts are greatly appreciated. Very encouraging news.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on March 29, 2013, 02:55:25 PM
OK, I have it booting and able to play music and generally operate, by just disabling the sanity check for whether the ATA registers are writable/readable correctly. It looks like the SATA interface doesn't implement reading back of the four address registers properly, and this is not normally important in usage of parallel ATA devices that aren't cdrom drives, which is why the original firmware works.

It still doesn't work properly, though: writing to the drive in Rockbox mostly doesn't work. It manages to save its settings, playlist control files, etc, but initialising the database hangs when it tries to write the database to disk, and while reading the device over usb works fine, you can't write to it.

So, I'll need to look at it some more, but this is a good start ;)

If you want to try this on your own device, comment out the call to check_registers() in firmware/drivers/ata.c and build; that was enough to get the one I have here to boot. But, don't expect it to work properly.

Trone, we can't wait to hear the ultimate news on the mSATA.  :) 

My dream is to have one affordable 256GB mSATA SSD ipod 5.5g of course Rockbox'ed.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on April 02, 2013, 07:40:19 AM
The communication with the SSD is completely unreliable no matter what I do, it seems; data are corrupted randomly and writing rarely works, and even the basic identifying information about the SSD such as the model name is corrupted randomly when read :/

I need to do some more experiments, but it's really not obvious what the issue is here.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: crashtack on April 10, 2013, 12:31:01 AM
:-(
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: SpawnHyuuga on April 18, 2013, 02:26:48 PM
Does anybody have the Super Talent DuraDrive ZT2 installed in an iPod? The reviews on Amazon for the drive itself are rather shaky at best, and I don't want to sink $200 on something that'll fail in 3 months, especially if it's difficult to fix, repair or replace.

I'm highly considering a KingSpec SSD instead, as it's much cheaper.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Alkor on May 02, 2013, 09:33:01 AM
torne
Ok ppl still w8 u. So good luck  ::)
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: darrysmi on May 05, 2013, 05:21:47 AM
The communication with the SSD is completely unreliable no matter what I do, it seems; data are corrupted randomly and writing rarely works, and even the basic identifying information about the SSD such as the model name is corrupted randomly when read :/

I need to do some more experiments, but it's really not obvious what the issue is here.

Thanks Torne, progress is progress :)  Thanks for investigating, hopefully its something simple...
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: dreamlayers on May 05, 2013, 10:57:22 AM
Try different timings in IDE0_PRI_TIMING0. Look in firmware/target/arm/pp/ata-pp5020.c. The register is set in ata_device_init() and below the function there is a comment with some other values.

Rockbox has used 0x10 from before I worked on these files. I never saw iPod 5G OF using that value. When I tried various PIO timings on my 5G 30GB iPod with stock HD, 0x10 gave the best performance, so I left it that way.

In firmware/drivers/ata.c, the first setting in set_features() sets the PIO mode. The OF would match that to the IDE0_PRI_TIMING0 value. You could try setting a slower mode, but that shouldn't be necessary.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 08, 2013, 08:38:14 AM
Aha, thanks for your expertise dreamlayers :)

I will experiment with that later.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 08, 2013, 05:35:32 PM
Well, that works, it seems. Left it on PIO 4, and changed the timing to the one from pio80mhz[4] (0x3131) and lo and behold check_registers now passes and nothing is corrupted any more. :)

Do we have any idea what the timing value actually means here? I could change it to 0x3131 for everyone but it seems like we should maybe copy the OF better and use the one that matches the PIO mode we are using?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 08, 2013, 07:48:01 PM
Well, that works, it seems. Left it on PIO 4, and changed the timing to the one from pio80mhz[4] (0x3131) and lo and behold check_registers now passes and nothing is corrupted any more. :)

Do we have any idea what the timing value actually means here? I could change it to 0x3131 for everyone but it seems like we should maybe copy the OF better and use the one that matches the PIO mode we are using?
You are the man Torne, and thanks for the great news. Words can't express my appreciation for what you (and the entire RB team) have been doing for so many RB lovers including myself.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: dreamlayers on May 08, 2013, 11:45:30 PM
Well, that works, it seems. Left it on PIO 4, and changed the timing to the one from pio80mhz[4] (0x3131) and lo and behold check_registers now passes and nothing is corrupted any more. :)

Great! It's nice to know you got that working.

Do we have any idea what the timing value actually means here? I could change it to 0x3131 for everyone but it seems like we should maybe copy the OF better and use the one that matches the PIO mode we are using?

This is based on iPod 5G startup code in flash. I think these are timing values for PIO modes 0 through 4, based on how the function using them is written.  The OF first uses value 0 and then after setting PIO mode 4 via the set feature command switches to value 4 (0x3131).  For mwdma and udma, the OF actually checks what the drive supports and sets values based on that, but no detection is performed for PIO.

Support for PIO 3 and 4 can be detected from identify device info and Rockbox does detect them and set 2, 3 or 4 appropriately. This could be used by defining ATA_SET_PIO_TIMING and implementing ata_set_pio_timings with IDE0_PRI_TIMING0 = pio80mhz[mode]. I think it's unlikely that any drives not supporting PIO 4 would be encountered, but this might as well be used since the supporting code is already present. In ata_device_init, IDE0_PRI_TIMING0 = pio80mhz[0] should be used to match the OF. Using the 80 MHz value for PIO0 at a lower CPU frequency is probably fine.

I think this would be a good thing, because of how various adapter boards are popular now and problems like this will come up again. I suspect 0x10 violates the spec but works with most storage devices because the signal path is so short.  The performance decrease is small even with PIO, and now most reads are done via DMA.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 09, 2013, 06:18:00 AM
OK, I'll go ahead and do it like that.

However, while Rockbox appears to work correctly including both reading and writing files, plugging in USB hangs the device immediately. I'm not sure if this is related or not, I'll need to experiment more :/
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 10, 2013, 05:08:22 AM
OK, I'll go ahead and do it like that.

However, while Rockbox appears to work correctly including both reading and writing files, plugging in USB hangs the device immediately. I'm not sure if this is related or not, I'll need to experiment more :/

By the way, have you tried using an external amp with the ipod? Would a LOD cable hang the device also?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 12, 2013, 05:43:04 PM
Posted a patch for this here: http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/469/

There's an ipodvideo test build of this available here if anyone wants to try: http://whitefang.wolfpuppy.org.uk/temp/rockbox-piotimings.zip - if you try this let me know how it works. On the device I have this is not 100% functional yet; it boots and plays audio but test_disk hangs and USB behaves badly.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: dreamlayers on May 13, 2013, 12:22:17 AM
Did you try disabling DMA (HAVE_ATA_DMA) or enabling DMA for writes (ATA_DMA_WRITES)? Neither of these are a good long-term solution, but they might help narrow down what's failing.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 14, 2013, 04:59:25 AM
Just want to say BIG thanks to Torne and Dreamlayers for your time and efforts to benefit many Rockbox hardcore followers like myself.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: cereal_killer on May 14, 2013, 10:14:47 AM
There's an ipodvideo test build of this available here if anyone wants to try: http://whitefang.wolfpuppy.org.uk/temp/rockbox-piotimings.zip - if you try this let me know how it works.

So is this test build only for iPods that are modified with mSATA SSDs + adapter? Or does it make sense to try it on an unmodified iPod Video too?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 14, 2013, 11:25:49 AM
The test build is for iPods that have some kind of storage/adapter fitted that doesn't work with normal Rockbox; it doesn't matter what kind of adapter/disk that is really, it's possible that this change could fix problems on any weird hardware that wasn't previously working :)

Feel free to test it on a regular unmodified one as well, but you shouldn't see any difference (it may be very slightly slower to access the disk but not so much you'd notice).
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 23, 2013, 04:21:31 AM
Has anyone tried the patch or test build with a mSATA drive? I am really interested to know if the USB issue as mentioned by Torne is a common issue for this type of drive.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 23, 2013, 09:30:40 AM
Nobody has tried it and told me about it. :/

I'm going to do some more tests on the drive I have soon, but I've not had a lot of time lately.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 23, 2013, 10:48:45 PM
Nobody has tried it and told me about it. :/

I'm going to do some more tests on the drive I have soon, but I've not had a lot of time lately.

Look forward to your latest results. I am assuming if you have issues with the USB then you probably have issues with the LOD as well.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 24, 2013, 06:51:22 AM
No, there's no reason why line out should be a problem. That has nothing to do with accessing the disk.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 25, 2013, 05:00:35 AM
As long as the USB can still charge the battery , maybe we can have the rockbox installed first and then remove the ssd drive. Connect the ssd  drive to the computer using an external adapter for copying files. After the files are copied, put the ssd drive back to the ipod. Would that work?

I don't expect to delete and copy files after the ssd drive is filled full.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 25, 2013, 08:32:09 AM
It works fine in the original firmware, there's no need to do that.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 25, 2013, 04:05:45 PM
It works fine in the original firmware, there's no need to do that.
But the point is I don't want to use the original Apple firmware. So if rockbox can be installed to the drive and it can play music, then maybe we just need to find a way to copy the files to the drive since the uSB is having trouble to do that.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: saratoga on May 25, 2013, 04:42:04 PM
It works fine in the original firmware, there's no need to do that.
But the point is I don't want to use the original Apple firmware.

Why exactly?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 28, 2013, 05:08:59 AM
It works fine in the original firmware, there's no need to do that.
But the point is I don't want to use the original Apple firmware. So if rockbox can be installed to the drive and it can play music, then maybe we just need to find a way to copy the files to the drive since the uSB is having trouble to do that.
Yes, so the way to copy the files I was suggesting is "reboot into the original firmware".
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 30, 2013, 07:38:12 PM
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 .... :)
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 31, 2013, 02:44:20 AM
Posted a patch for this here: http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/469/

There's an ipodvideo test build of this available here if anyone wants to try: http://whitefang.wolfpuppy.org.uk/temp/rockbox-piotimings.zip - if you try this let me know how it works. On the device I have this is not 100% functional yet; it boots and plays audio but test_disk hangs and USB behaves badly.

I finally got all my parts and tried this test build and it didn't work.

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.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 31, 2013, 09:39:51 AM
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"?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on May 31, 2013, 09:44:40 AM
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? :)
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DMinor on May 31, 2013, 03:27:15 PM
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.  :(
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: cereal_killer on June 04, 2013, 08:14:14 AM
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.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Reima on June 19, 2013, 08:07:31 PM
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
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on June 20, 2013, 05:30:38 AM
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.
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Reima on July 11, 2013, 11:26:31 AM
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?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: torne on July 12, 2013, 04:15:37 PM
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..
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: LFF on September 14, 2013, 04:44:29 AM
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. :-)   :)
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: beyondwind on February 27, 2014, 11:56:05 AM
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

Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: [Saint] on February 27, 2014, 08:58:03 PM
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 (http://gerrit.rockbox.org/). The wiki can assist you in setting up git to use gerrit (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/UsingGit) should you need it.

You could also consider promoting the binary via the Unsupported Builds (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/board,36.0.html) section of the forum.


[Saint]
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: cereal_killer on February 28, 2014, 04:43:33 AM
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
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: DKRTech on February 28, 2014, 07:08:11 PM
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!!!
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: wxharry1031 on January 28, 2015, 07:00:16 AM
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?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: [Saint] on January 28, 2015, 09:10:11 PM
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 (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/Main/DevelopmentGuide#Set_Up_Your_Environment), compile the toolchain for your host (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/DevelopmentGuide#Build_the_cross_compiler), apply the patch (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/Main/WorkingWithPatches), and then compile Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/Main/DevelopmentGuide#Build_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]
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: darrysmi on August 04, 2015, 07:16:53 AM
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

Beyondwind, I know this thread is old but I just wanted to post and say thank you!  The build you posted works perfectly on my video 5G with a 128Gb Crucial MSATA :)  Once again I am rocking the box!!
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: ahmao on January 01, 2017, 02:41:19 AM
the patch is here:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/5f3bcab69a01fdfa9f47bac73b74cf10/archive/ea12373570d0cb0e78286c64112927162b77c2e6.zip

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
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: Massa on January 05, 2017, 09:49:34 AM
the patch is here:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/5f3bcab69a01fdfa9f47bac73b74cf10/archive/ea12373570d0cb0e78286c64112927162b77c2e6.zip
Thanks, the old link did not work anymore...! ;D

Is the patch only useful for mSATA SSDs or also for SDXC cards?
Title: Re: 256GB mSATA SSD for iPod 5g/5.5g - possible with current release of Rockbox?
Post by: SrMarques on May 20, 2018, 05:18:19 AM
Hello all,

Thank you very much for your help.

Pls, do you know if a build including this patch is available for downloading anywhere?

Thanks!!