Please, support the AVNET SSD/M.2 module in the latest ZUBoard PYNQ image!
The SSD/M.2 module is so impressive fast - it would be nice if I can use it as the main storage in my system
(instead of a slow SD card).
Details:
I did a speed measurement via the Petalinux image (supporting SSD/M.2).
ATT: the ZUBoard PYNQ does not support eMMC, neither SSD/M.2.
I get these IMPRESSIVE results:
SSD/M.2 (256GB module):
WRITE speed: 207, 206, 205 MB/s - avg: 206 MB/s
READ speed: 425, 405 MB/s - avg: 410 MB/s (twice the write speed)
compare it with the results using a "typical" SD card (e.g. Sandisk, 32GB):
WRITE speed: 22 MB/s - better as 26 MB/s I have never seen (Lexar Gold)
READ speed: 24 MB/s - maybe up to 75 MB/s possible
So, the SSD/M.2 is so fast that I wish to have these options in ZUBoard PYNQ:
- support in AVNET ZUBoard PYNQ image also the (optional) use of the SSD/M.2 module!
- flash the SSD with the rootfs (the main Linux file system, with working directories, swap device, user space...)
- boot from (slow) SD card: mmcblk0p1 as boot but changing over to SSD/M.2 (via bootargs, to nvme0n1 with rootfs)
- run entire system on SSD/M.2
It would be a dramatic speed improvement. Make the SSD/M.2 available in PYNQ image for ZUBoard!
How to measure?
If you flash the Petalinux test image (without Python and PYNQ support), you get a command line.
You will see that SSD/M.2 or even if eMMC module is connected.
No Python, so, you have to test on Linux (UART) command line.
Use these commands:
WRITE speed test:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/run/media/nvme0n1/tmpfile bs=1M count=1024
It will write a 1GB tmpfile to SSD/M.2.
Check the results.
READ speed test:
dd if=/run/media/nvme0n1/tmpfile of=/dev/null bs=1M count=1024
read back the SSD/M.2 file without to write to another media (SD card as of=... would limit the speed by its write speed!)
Conclusion:
The AVNET SSD/M.2 module is so fast, way faster as SD card (or even optional AVNET eMMC module, which is even slower as SD card!),
it would be "cool" if we could use it for our system memory.
Please,
make the SSD/M.2 module available in ZUBoard PYNQ image.
Thank you.
Remark:
Unfortunately, the AVNET SSD/M.2 modules supports only one type of SSD: I found only one 256GB module
with a B+M key which works. A larger module (e.g. 512GB) and also fitting - does not work.
Anyway: to have 256GB SSD of such a fast system memory in ZUBoard PYNQ would be great.