Enabling Esata on V1.3 Sheeva Plug - Progress Report.

[superpat]

Hi Paul,

It looks like you have all the components OK.  You are so nearly there!

Question is:- are the components connected properly (soldered in OK) ?   I got that error when I started, I found I had not soldered one end of one of the series decoupling capacitors properly. It was waving in the air. Resoldering it fixed the problem. 

Read my previous reply again!

How and what drive have you got connected?

If it is in an external enclosure, how are you powering the sata drive?  Try switching the power to the sata drive  off and on.

Have you checked the esata cable is properly plugged into your enclosure?

Try the drive bare with an  external supply  THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO  TEST THE  SHEEVAPLUG SATA CONNECTION

Good luck

Patrick

[Guai888]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your help. It is now working:

********************************************************
Marvell>> ide reset

Reset IDE:
Marvell Serial ATA Adapter
Integrated Sata device found
[0 1 0]: Enable DMA mode (6)
  Device 1 @ 0 1:
Model: Maxtor 6L300S0                           Firm: BANC1G10 Ser#: L62XZB5G   
            Type: Hard Disk
            Supports 48-bit addressing
            Capacity: 286187.7 MB = 279.4 GB (586112591 x 512)

******************************************************************

It was tough to make sure all the component was solder onto the board correctly.

eSATA is great for HDD. The transfer rate is much better. On top of it, my USB port is free to do other stuff (Like power my 2.5" HDD)
I love it

If I put a DVB-T stick on the USB drive and hook up HDD through eSATA, I can turn this setup into a Slingbox+Recorder. The posibility is endless. : )

[jesterday]

First of all thanks a lot superpat for your work and patience in talking to yourself most of the time. 

I read this thread for some time now, as i'm very interested in the sheevaplug but was really missing the sata option.
As regarding to superpat the whole process needs special equipment and a brave hearth,I got a question:

What does the parts cost needed to build your solution? Any idea what it will cost if soldering is made by third party?


Thanks in advance

Ralf

[superpat]

@ Guai888

Great stuff, I am glad you got it working ok!

@Ralf

Question 1 Parts cost  Very little!   However I over-ordered all the components, from Mouser in the us, i.e. needed 2 ordered 10 etc,
402's  C's
0.1u 16v  £0.034   10 off
0.01u 16v £0.069   10 off
1u 10V      £0.346   5 off
603 ferrite  £0.076  10 off
Connector   £0.809    2 off

You definitely NEED the proper tools. It is not impossible to solder these little components with the right tools, especially a magnifier, but it is hard.

The MAJOR problem is cleaning the lumps of solder off the vacant pads, without removing the pads by accident. On the 4 caps in the pi filter, one end of the caps is the 0v ground plane. This sucks all the heat out of your dewicking braid and soldering iron. I have a 90w rework iron with a 0.2mm radius tip, it struggles to get the heat into the braid.

Here is the URL of a video showing soldering of 0402 components:- www.youtube.com/watch?v=66GV4OuShzI

When you look at the video, remember the pads in this video are CLEAN with no great lumps of solder!  When GlobalScale manufactured the Plug boards they used a "common" mask, so all the unused pads were covered with solder paste, so when the board went through the oven, the paste fused into lumps on the unused pads. It is hard to balance a component on two solder mountains!

The connector is  easy to solder.

I have no idea who or how much they would charge to solder  8 0402 caps, one 0603 ferrite and  one connector.

So you see not a lot, What was expensive was the Fedex charge from the states, (I could not find the connector in the UK) I think the carriage was £12.00

Question 2 Port multiplier   Don't know, haven't tried one, I don't see why not, its a standard sata port, SATA 2 with bags of bandwidth, if you have one lend it me and I will try it  !

Question 3   Have you looked at www.openrd.org?  You can get the specifications there.  There seems to be a preference for OpenRd-client units,   NEW IT is selling them in the uk at the moment.   

A really think that it will not be long now before we can buy a version of the Sheevaplug with E-Sata as standard. 

see the post:- http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=1046.0

Good luck

Patrick

[Guai888]

Hey guys,

I need couple of more Sheevaplug with eSATA, but I am too lazy to repeat the process. I think I will talk to Globalscale and get some units of Sheevaplug with eSATA port. It probably will be a little bit more expensive than their regular unit. Anyone interested, please send a message to me and I will give you feedback after I check with Globalscale.

[jesterday]

@superpat :
thanks for your quick response.
I think i will go for the open-rd base system as it is 'only' about 40 € more than the sheeva or wait for the e-sata plug. I got basic soldering skills but there is surely more needed than that. :-)

I want to use the sheeva-thing as follow up to my nslu2 (NAS & media server) and additionally using NAS in RAID1. So i'm interested in network performance (smb) when using sata. Did you tested it and if yes can tell me your results?

again thanks in advance

ralf

[pingtoo]

Hey guys,

I need couple of more Sheevaplug with eSATA, but I am too lazy to repeat the process. I think I will talk to Globalscale and get some units of Sheevaplug with eSATA port. It probably will be a little bit more expensive than their regular unit. Anyone interested, please send a message to me and I will give you feedback after I check with Globalscale.

I am interest too, be willing to pay up to 50 dollars more.

[Guai888]

Hi Patrick,

I am trying to compile 2.6.32 but my sata_mv never seem to load.  I have enable the following in the menuconfig

Device Driver->SCSI device support->
-*-  SCSI device support
<*> SCSI disk support

Device Driver-> Serial ATA (Prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) driver ->

• AHCI SATA support
• ATA SFF support

<*> marvell SATA support

Did I miss anything

[superpat]

Hi,

What I did was to use the Marvell Orion Git repository  and cross compile a kernel.

I opened  orion/arch/arm/mach-kirkwood and compared openrd_base-setup.c with the standard Marvell sheevaplug-setup.c.   There are a few 3 or 4, cannot remember exactly,  extra lines to add

I then edited sheevaplug-setup.c to include the necessary additions for the Sata

I have attached my modified sheevaplug-setup. c to this reply  as *.modified. DO NOT get it confused with the official sheevaplug setup file!!!!!!
 
I then followed the instructions here:-

http://plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Compiling_Linux_Kernel_for_the_Plug_Computer

use the cross compiling section.

cheers

Patrick

[Guai888]

Cool,

I will give it a try tonight.

[Guai888]

Hi Patrick,

Everything work now
Thank you very much for your help.

[fun]

hello

I've made U-Boot 3.4.23 binary which supports eSATA.

 http://www.naobsd.org/sheeva/u-boot-rd88f6281Sheevaplug_400db_nand.bin

it works fine on KURO-SHEEVA.

[superpat]

hi fun.

I have d/l'd it. I will try it on my Plug when I can, busy now with xPL-perl, Rfxcom, Oregon sensors and the Sheevaplug

BTW What kernel are you using?  Does it support sata drive?

regards

Patrick

[fun]

hi

Now I'm using vanilla kernel + minimal changes for SATA. here is patch,
 http://www.naobsd.org/sheeva/linux-2.6.32.diff
and uImage,
 http://www.naobsd.org/sheeva/uImage

U-Boot patch against 3.4.23 is here,
 http://www.naobsd.org/sheeva/u-boot-1.1.4.diff
and entire source (U-Boot 1.1.4 + 3.4.23 + patch) is here,
 http://www.naobsd.org/sheeva/u-boot-1.1.4-3.4.23-sata.tar.bz2

----
KURO-SHEEVA, sold in Japan, has eSATA natively. it seems rev.1.3 board + eSATA port. you can see photos at
 http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20091203_333030.html

I heard initial U-Boot/kernel on KURO-SHEEVA support eSATA *AFTER* I erased them
I'll check CD-ROM bundled with KURO-SHEEVA. but it labeled "SheevaPlug Development Kit Version: 1.2" from "GLOBALSCALE". so I think initial U-Boot/kernel are not included in CD-ROM

[fun]

I confirmed bundled CD-ROM is for SheevaPlug, not for KURO-SHEEVA. i.e. I lost initial U-Boot/kernel and I don't have a source.

I can request a source from vendor (by GPL), but I have no interest to do it. I can make useful U-Boot/kernel myself