cubieboard's NAND

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Sergey Lapin

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Sep 22, 2012, 6:49:03 PM9/22/12
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Hi, al!

Will new CubieBoard have NAND? If not, will it be possible to
have some place on the board to solder it? I need NAND badly, so
I could test my crippled things.

S.

Alejandro Mery

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Sep 22, 2012, 8:51:12 PM9/22/12
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it has 4GB.

Alexandr B

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Oct 5, 2012, 3:48:12 PM10/5/12
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Здаров. А нафига тебе больше 4GB? Припаять больше ты не сможешь. Там помоему привязка контроллера точно к памяти.

воскресенье, 23 сентября 2012 г., 2:49:04 UTC+4 пользователь Sergey Lapin написал:

Alejandro Mery

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Oct 5, 2012, 3:49:07 PM10/5/12
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2012/10/5 Alexandr B <alex...@gmail.com>:

> Здаров. А нафига тебе больше 4GB? Припаять больше ты не сможешь. Там помоему
> привязка контроллера точно к памяти.

english please

Dmitriy B.

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Oct 5, 2012, 4:08:16 PM10/5/12
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Пожалуйста, пишите на английском, это english-only группа.

С уважением.

5 октября 2012 г., 23:48 пользователь Alexandr B <alex...@gmail.com> написал:
--
 
 

Henrik Nordström

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Oct 5, 2012, 5:30:25 PM10/5/12
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fre 2012-10-05 klockan 12:48 -0700 skrev Alexandr B:
> Здаров. А нафига тебе больше 4GB? Припаять больше ты не сможешь. Там
> помоему привязка контроллера точно к памяти.

The board can be built in two different configurations

* One SD slot + NAND. Normally 4GB. In theory should be possible to
build boards with larger size NAND but quesion if there will be
sufficient demand. See below.

* Two SD slots.

I am not sure what model is currently being produced. The first batch
was 1 SD + 4GB NAND.

For non-android hacking the second model with two SD slots is generally
preferable:
+ Possible to upgrade with easy change of SD card.
+ noticeably faster
+ can be replaced if worn out.
+ OS can be changed/switched by changing to another card.
- Possible to remove OS card by mistake when one intended to remove the
storage card.

But for Android usage embedded NAND is generally preferred it seems. Not
sure why. Android runs fine from SD card as well.

Regards
Henrik

Emilio López

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Oct 6, 2012, 4:17:47 PM10/6/12
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El 05/10/12 18:30, Henrik Nordström escribió:
> But for Android usage embedded NAND is generally preferred it seems. Not
> sure why. Android runs fine from SD card as well.

Most Android devices (if not all) have just 1 SD card slot + NAND, and
it doesn't make much sense to leave the NAND storage unused and kill
storage expandability (you wouldn't be able to swap your SD card because
it also holds the OS, upgrading to a newer one would require OS
reinstallation, etc).

--
Emilio

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Henrik Nordström

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Oct 6, 2012, 9:36:01 PM10/6/12
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lör 2012-10-06 klockan 17:17 -0300 skrev Emilio López:

> Most Android devices (if not all) have just 1 SD card slot + NAND, and
> it doesn't make much sense to leave the NAND storage unused and kill
> storage expandability (you wouldn't be able to swap your SD card because
> it also holds the OS, upgrading to a newer one would require OS
> reinstallation, etc).

Note: you would have two cards, one for os and one for data.

android runs fine in such setups, and it is increasingly common except
that the os card is usually an eMMC and not a removable card.

Regards
Henrik

Emilio López

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Oct 6, 2012, 11:18:58 PM10/6/12
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El 06/10/12 22:36, Henrik Nordström escribió:
Indeed, a setup with two cards would be just fine for Android; in fact
it might be better that way - the bundled NAND is usually slow.

I was just pointing out why do people prefer Android on NAND vs SD: all
commercially available Android A10 devices (that I have seen at least)
have just 1 SD slot, not 2.

--
Emilio

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Henrik Nordström

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Oct 7, 2012, 1:58:48 AM10/7/12
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sön 2012-10-07 klockan 00:18 -0300 skrev Emilio López:

> I was just pointing out why do people prefer Android on NAND vs SD: all
> commercially available Android A10 devices (that I have seen at least)
> have just 1 SD slot, not 2.

Yes, because that's what the reference design uses.. and maybe slightly
cheaper than eMMC as well.

Most commercial A10 devices are cheap tablets where neither board size
or flash memory performance is a priority.

Regards
Henrik

jons...@gmail.com

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Oct 7, 2012, 10:14:31 AM10/7/12
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Consumer productions are better off with fixed NAND and one slot.
That's because consumers don't change their OS all of the time. Plus
they don't know how to get an OS loaded onto an SD Card. Fixed NAND
makes it harder for the consumer to mess up the OS.

Developer products benefit from two slots. You can remove the OS SD
Card and stick it into the host which is the fastest way to write it.
Want to switch between Android and Ubuntu? swap cards. Have another
card for a dedicated XBMC setup.

I haven't played with low level boot on the A10, but I work on a
similar CPU. Two slots is great for working on uboot. Now you don't
need a JTAG to keep loading uboot while you work on it. Pull the card
and write a new uboot to it when it hangs. Debug it with printf.

I can't see any real downside to two SD Card slots on a developer
oriented board. I actually prefer the OS slot to be a full sided SD
Card. The micro cards are so small they are hard to handle when your
are moving them back and forth between systems twenty times a day.

An even better setup is to make an OS SD card that only contains
uboot. That uboot is set to load the kernel using tftp. The kernel is
then set to nfs boot from the host. Of course that means we need
uboot working on the A10. Stick this card into the board and now you
don't have to flash anything on each dev cycle.

Of course you can do all of this with the fixed NAND too.

>
> --
> Emilio
>



--
Jon Smirl
jons...@gmail.com

Henrik Nordström

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Oct 7, 2012, 5:27:53 PM10/7/12
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sön 2012-10-07 klockan 10:14 -0400 skrev jons...@gmail.com:
> Consumer productions are better off with fixed NAND and one slot.
> That's because consumers don't change their OS all of the time. Plus
> they don't know how to get an OS loaded onto an SD Card. Fixed NAND
> makes it harder for the consumer to mess up the OS.

But cubieboard is not a "consumer" device.

> I haven't played with low level boot on the A10, but I work on a
> similar CPU. Two slots is great for working on uboot. Now you don't
> need a JTAG to keep loading uboot while you work on it. Pull the card
> and write a new uboot to it when it hangs. Debug it with printf.

A10 is even easier. All A10 devices boot from the primary uSD port
first, before NAND.

And in addition there is the option to load any code you want over USB.

> I can't see any real downside to two SD Card slots on a developer
> oriented board. I actually prefer the OS slot to be a full sided SD
> Card. The micro cards are so small they are hard to handle when your
> are moving them back and forth between systems twenty times a day.

Agreed, but hard to fit such large socket on cubieboard.

> An even better setup is to make an OS SD card that only contains
> uboot. That uboot is set to load the kernel using tftp. The kernel is
> then set to nfs boot from the host. Of course that means we need
> uboot working on the A10. Stick this card into the board and now you
> don't have to flash anything on each dev cycle.

A10 u-boot do not have network.

> Of course you can do all of this with the fixed NAND too.

yes, except easily swapping OS image while keeping a free slot for
removable media.

Regards
Henrik

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