UFSinstaller

[Audioniek]

The UFS910


Owners of a UFS910 that had a look inside may have noticed that the main board has a provision for a SATA connector. In the early days, this was often the case with receivers based on the STi7100, STi7101 or STi7109 SoC as this SoC has a SATA port integrated. It is therefore possible to expand a UFS910 giving it an internal SATA connected hard disk. The process of adding one is straightforward as it involves disassembling the receiver to make the solder side of the main board accessible and soldering in a SATA connector in the location provided. Before soldering in the connector, first check if the four 10nF coupling capacitors are present. They are located right beside the location for SATA connector. In the two receivers of the author the capacitors were already mounted. If they are not, add them before soldering in the SATA connector. Their value is 10nF, the shape is 0603 if I remember correctly.

The power supply of the UFS910 was not designed to power an internal hard disk but practice has shown that it has capacity to spare to keep a low power 2.5 inch drive that only requires +5 Volts going.

After adding the connectors for SATA and power and mounting the drive, it is time for the next step. I have added the UFS910 to the ufsinstaller directory in the build environment. To make use of it, simply build an image for the UFS910 using flash as destination and run fakeroot ./flash.sh in the flash directory to prepare the files required.

The basic approach with the UFS910 is the same as with the UFS922 and the TF7700. The kernel used by the image resides in NOR flash, the rootfs of the image sits on a 2 Gbyte partition on the hard disk. Control of the installation process is again through the file Image_Installer.ini and the options are exactly the same, including the difference between a first installation (requiring partitioning and formatting of the hard disk) and an update (which does not).

There is only one minor difference in the process. Whereas the UFS922 gets two kernels flashed, on the UFS910 initially the kernel performing the installation and partitioning/formatting of the hard disk is flashed; at the end of the installation process it is overwritten by the actual kernel used by the image.

Final note: as far as I know, (I have not tested/verified this) the Kathrein factory firmware does not recognize an internal SATA hard disk and cannot use it. This is very likely caused by the fact that its kernel lacks the SATA driver.

Regards,

Audioniek.