Hypothetical - accelerator with onboard SATA?

[cloverskull]

Hey friends, I love the myriad new accelerator cards coming out for our beloved Amigas like I'm sure many of you do. However I am not the biggest fan of having my HDD as an image on an SD card. I'd rather have something more traditional in the sense of a desktop computer

Also, for whatever reason, I enjoy using actual 68k CPUs. I know, it's anachronistic at this point, but it's what I like. And considering the cost of full 060s and the fact that a lot of TF boards are being sold, I assume I'm not the only one!

So my hypothetical is this - why aren't there any of these with onboard SATA? Would it be too tough to implement on the HW side, SW side, or both?

I use a CSMK3 in my A4000 mainly because of the SCSI. I'd prefer to use a BFG9060 but would then be stuck using onboard IDE or at best a SCSI card on the Zorro III BUS. It'd be so much cooler to have SATA on the CPU card.

Anyway I'm just curious if there are any significant roadblocks or if this is just not something anyone has tried to do yet. Or perhaps I'm the only person who would want this.

[pixie]

Originally Posted by cloverskull

It'd be so much cooler to have SATA on the CPU card.

Not only cool, with time older harddrives will become much like unobtanium

[Reynolds]

As there are already available IDE>SATA converters I think it shouldn't be a black magic thing.

[Locutus]

The problem is that almost all SATA host controllers require a PCI-e, PCI or USB bus to connect to.

(One could argue that IDE>SATA adapters are SATA host controllers with 16bit ISA interfaces, but lets not digress, as at that point you are PIO driving a SATA interface).

Thus to have a fast, native SATA port on a accelerator you need to implement a PCI or PCI-Express.

That's a complexity and pricey task, and even if you would do that, you might be better off exposing that bus for actual expansion cards instead.

[alexh]

The FPGAs currently being used for accelerators have 6GHz capable SERDES integrated into them and the Xilinx FPGAs come with a free design library which includes an AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) with a standard SoC interface (usually AXI master + slave) so it should be possible to add a SATA controller into a newer Amiga accelerator. The issue is the boot-rom. Someone would have to write a new scsi.device that could communicate with the AHCI core. AmigaOS driver writers are few and far between.

[Locutus]

Oh! I did not think about soft-core SATA being a thing, now i feel stupid :-)

[alexh]

What would be more practical today would be a PCIe 1x lane Gen 3 root complex to support a PCIe NVMe SSD.

PiStorm32 in theory can access the RPi's root complex and thereby an NVMe SSD drive.

We may well see AmigaOS drivers for the RPi PCIe root complex and NVMe drives for PiStorm in the future.

[Calabazam]

I use SATA or mSATA everywhere with IDE converters (except A600/A500/CDTV with CF due to lack of space) and it works fine.
I don't need as much IO speed than you and the CS MK3 SCSI, i am usually fine with the onboard IDE of the A1200/A4000 @ 2 to 3 MB/s according to the CPU used.
I would rather keep IDE as long as adapters exist than switching to full SATA because of global compatibility with my older drives, should i want to connect one.

[Kin Hell]

Originally Posted by alexh

What would be more practical today would be a PCIe 1x lane Gen 3 root complex to support a PCIe NVMe SSD.

PiStorm32 in theory can access the RPi's root complex and thereby an NVMe SSD drive.

We may well see AmigaOS drivers for the RPi PCIe root complex and NVMe drives for PiStorm in the future.

Indeed....

I've run Linux from nVME on the back of this CM4 version of PiStorm32 Lite interface. - Simply write RPi OS to the nVME card as you would for Caffeine or Coffin OS's to a MicroSD card.

https://github.com/PiStorm/cm4board/..._PiStorm32Lite

Configuring the CM4 module to prioritise nVME in the boot process was a proper sod though (I'm a Linux noob) but so looking forward to Amiga Drivers for this option.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Locutus

Thus to have a fast, native SATA port on a accelerator you need to implement a PCI or PCI-Express.

Or DMA Parallel ATA (ATA-6/7) controller - 100MBps - probably more than enough for Amiga and way easier than creating PCI/PCIe host (not sure if also not cheaper due royalties associated with PCI/PCIe host cores) also software probably wise - look at existing PCI solutions for Amiga - barely working, limited functionality.

[DisasterIncarna]

ive seen old adapters like https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 before, that goes from IDE port to an SD-Card, are there any that go direct from IDE to Sata or NVME? or are they just too damned slow and need a new port?

[Promilus]

When it comes to FPGA based solution there's LiteSATA core already... has been for quite a while now. But - SATA interface itself is not the biggest issue here. To do data transactions without CPU you'd have to hook it up to mem controller with dedicated DMA engine. That's doable but for some reason all those V cards which has everything to make it work uses IDE instead.

[8 Bit Dreams]

If someone isn't aware - we've did implemented SATA & M.2 support on Fat Olga:
https://www.amibay.com/threads/dicke...5/post-2489142
This runs perfectly on LIDE BootROM from LIV2

[qz3fwd]

Originally Posted by 8 Bit Dreams

If someone isn't aware - we've did implemented SATA & M.2 support on Fat Olga:
https://www.amibay.com/threads/dicke...5/post-2489142
This runs perfectly on LIDE BootROM from LIV2

This is really cool. Thanks. I just got an EATX 2000 board and have been pondering which accelerator card for it: PiStorm, Vampire, ....... and now this.
I need to read that whole thread. Kinda new to Amiga, but all these developments are really exciting. We just need new keyboards and keycaps otherwise you can build brand new Amigas today.

DJCook has built several cards for me and he is highly recommended.

[cloverskull]

Originally Posted by 8 Bit Dreams

If someone isn't aware - we've did implemented SATA & M.2 support on Fat Olga:
https://www.amibay.com/threads/dicke...5/post-2489142
This runs perfectly on LIDE BootROM from LIV2

Wow, super cool, and /exactly/ what I had in mind. M.2 is so affordable nowadays to me it seems almost like a no brainer.

Whatever combination of affordability, availability, and performance we can eke out with new accelerator hardware would be top of my list. I assumed that would be some form of SATA but this is awesome.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Promilus

When it comes to FPGA based solution there's LiteSATA core already... has been for quite a while now. But - SATA interface itself is not the biggest issue here. To do data transactions without CPU you'd have to hook it up to mem controller with dedicated DMA engine.

All accelerators will be implementing such a thing in their FPGA so shouldn't be an issue.

Originally Posted by 8 Bit Dreams

If someone isn't aware - we implemented SATA & M.2 support on Fat Olga:
https://www.amibay.com/threads/dicke...5/post-2489142
This runs perfectly on LIDE BootROM from LIV2

Ah, PATA->SATA adapter chip.

[Kin Hell]

Originally Posted by 8 Bit Dreams

If someone isn't aware - we've did implemented SATA & M.2 support on Fat Olga:
https://www.amibay.com/threads/dicke...5/post-2489142
This runs perfectly on LIDE BootROM from LIV2

Nice!