10

Are there any micro-controllers which support writing data to large sized SATA disks?

Brian Carlton
  • 13,252
  • 5
  • 43
  • 64
Unkwntech
  • 203
  • 2
  • 9

3 Answers3

8

Another option may be a high-end MCU with USB2 HS host, and use a USB-SATA adapter.

mikeselectricstuff
  • 10,655
  • 33
  • 34
6

SATA works at very high frequencies. If I look at this data connector sheet I basically see a TX/RX connection with differential signals because of the very high speed. 1.5Gbit of data would need to be proccesed, that's 1.5GHz signals. I've a feeling that it is a very high speed for a microcontroller to handle.

My best bet for you is to get a SATA to PATA converter and work with the PATA interface instead. It lowers the speed you need to look at bits, because the data is offered in a parallel way. That's still the easier way to work with.

I don't know whether you still want to use a microcontroller for that. I think a FPGA might become the better choice in such projects, but that depends on your goal.

Hans
  • 7,238
  • 1
  • 25
  • 37
  • Your answer seems spot on, means that I have to go back to the drawing board... :( – Unkwntech Dec 24 '10 at 21:51
  • I think I've seen some CPLD or even ASIC options for SATA downconversion -- might have even been a built-in ARM peripheral. – tyblu Dec 24 '10 at 22:35
  • 2
    Do those PATA->SATA converters still support the "old an slow" protocols? My USB->PATA adapters only support UDMA and above, thats >= 33MHz... – Turbo J Dec 31 '10 at 10:16
3

Think twice: You will also need a File System for large disks, and FAT32 has some design limits, esp. that Files must be < 4GB. Ohter file systems are much harder to implement on a µC. In most cases its easier to use a SD card, as it supports SPI.

Turbo J
  • 9,969
  • 1
  • 20
  • 28