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32 GB SD card on Zedboard

henry10210

Hello, I am trying to find the maximum SD card size I can access on Zedboard.  Zynq TRM says "up to 32 GB densities" (chapter 6).  Does this mean that I can actually plug in a 32 GB card and access all that space, or are there some other gotchas?

  • 0

    Hi Henry,

    Yes, Zynq only supports up to 32GB SDHC cards.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital

    I think this is established by the behavior of the Boot ROM but as long as you have the FAT partition set as partition 0, you should be able to boot from a 32GB card.  If you do not need to boot from the SD card, then there are fewer restrictions on size/type of card being used.

    One approach that seems to work well for other customers is to boot Zynq from QSPI into Linux but then mount an EXT4 file system on the SD card and use that device for mass storage purposes.

    Based upon what I have seen on the Xilinx forums, others have been able to use higher density (which are SDXC type) cards:

    http://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Zynq-All-Programmable-SoC/Booting-Zynq-from-a-64GB-SD-Card/td-p/555049

    So far, we have had good success on ZedBoard with the Sandisk and Delkin brands of SD cards of various different sizes.  However, your results may vary.

    Regards,

    -Kevin

  • 0 in reply to zedhed

    Thanks for the quick reply Kevin, I keep reading the link you gave over and over, for clarification on whether the Zedboard (perhaps more accurately, XC7Z020) supports > 32 GB.  I still don't understand why the TRM even mentioned "32 GB" as the limit.

    This is very important for my project, to decide whether we can live with Zedboard (XC7Z020) or go through the pain of bringing up ITX just for the SATA capability.  I tried putting BOOT.bin in QSPI once, and it worked then, so if I Zedboard can address either 128 GB or higher (I see the 512 GB SD card on Amazon!), I can continue with the Zedboard, knocking off at least a month or two from the schedule.

    In the post you linked, trenz-al promised a study of SD card capacity, but he did not indicate on what board he will do the experiment on.  Do you know what his plans are?

  • 0

    Hi Henry,

    My thoughts on the limitation shown in the TRM surround the capability of the BootROM (which cannot be modified) and what was tested for Zynq silicon.  Based upon what I have read, if you can live with booting from QSPI and using the larger SD cards for your rootfs, you will likely be safe.

    I don't know if trenz-al or anyone else has tried 128GB or higher on ZedBoard, but I posted a reply to the Xilinx thread asking if someone has tried something for ZedBoard.  So far, no response.

    Regards,

    -Kevin