SSD on the Ultra96v2 feasibility

Is there a possible way to get an SSD connected to the Ultra96V2 and be able to boot from it? The Zynq Ultrascale+ seems to support SATA and PCIE, but there are no such connectors on the board for that. Could I maybe be able to create a custom Mezzanine card that brings out the required pins through the HS connector?

I haven't looked too much into the wiring of the SATA/PCIE. I know that reference boards of the Zynq Ultrascale+ from Xilinx has both SATA and PCIE connectors. What's the feasibility of this on the Ultra96v2?

Also would ssd to emmc converter modules work? https://www.seeedstudio.com/eMMC-Module-Adapter-for-ROCK-PI-4-p-4142.html

Top Replies

spinden over 4 years ago

Interesting idea. From what I see in the schematic, only SPI and a few GPIO go/from the HS connector to the processors side of the SoC. If you go through the fabric, there may be some options but then you have to do custom hardware and I think you are going to be very limited in speed passing data to the processor.

-David
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
mindaugas over 4 years ago

Hi riltonf,

I have succesfully ran PYNQ rootfs from USB 3.0 flash drive on Ultra96. I did this because read speed from SD card was ~25MB/s, while reading from USB 3.0 flash drive was ~250MB/s. I think you could do the same by connecting SSD to USB 3.0 port.

With best regards,
Mindaugas Sulcas
Cancel
Vote Up +1 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
riltonf over 4 years ago in reply to mindaugas

Do you only have uboot on the micro-sd and the kernel, bitstream, and the rootfs on the usb? Can you paste the config?
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
mindaugas over 4 years ago in reply to riltonf

I am booting BOOT.bin (FSBL, u-boot) and image.ub (kernel) from SD card and loading just rootfs from usb flash drive. To boot rootfs from usb I changed bootargs in device tree from root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 to root=/dev/sda1. Also if not written I suggest to add rootwait in bootargs.

With best regards,
Mindaugas Sulcas
Cancel
Vote Up +1 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
narrucmot over 4 years ago

Unfortunately there aren't any transceivers brought out to the high speed mezzanine connector on the Ultra96-V2, so connecting a SATA SSD will not be possible. However, connecting a USB 3.0 disk or Flash drive is something many people have done.

--Tom
Cancel
Vote Up +1 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
riltonf over 4 years ago in reply to narrucmot

Going a bit off topic here, I see that the USB3's and mDP use the GT lanes, and there only seem to be up to 4 GT lanes on the board, all from bank 505. Two go to the USB3's, and two go to the mDP.
Hypothetically I could route the GT-lane2 to the SATA0 instead of USB0 (only usb3 would be affected, USB2 should still function as normal. I think? Because I'm not changing ULPI).
Afterwards, using a microA/B cable, stripping the SSTX and SSRX to be wired to SATA's A and B pins, respectively. This should in theory work I believe.

What are your thoughts? I might try to make this this weekend. I just hope I won't break anything.

P.S. Seeing as there are only 4 GT lanes available, was it the intention that you have to make a choice between PCIe x1/x2/x4, SATA, USB3, and DP combinations? Is this a limitation of this specific Zynq Ultrascale+ model?
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
spinden over 4 years ago

The new Xilinx Kria K26 a board that may be more what is needed. The datasheet (https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/data_sheets/ds987-k26-som.pdf ) show both PL and PS transceivers going to the connectors on the block diagram on page 3.

-David
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel