nwsp2 classic gpt support

[fvdw]

I found a volunteer to test my new u-boot version

I did it on my own nwsp2 after some careful checking..and it succeeded. The flash went smooth using the kernel that enable writing to the flash directly from Linux userland by just using the dd command and it reboot just fine with the new uboot

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Marvell>> version
version

U-Boot 1.1.4 (Jul 16 2012 - 14:50:54) Marvell version: 3.4.16  LaCie 1.3.9 256MB
Marvell>>

Originally it looked like this

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U-Boot 1.1.4 (Sep 23 2009 - 10:38:35) Marvell version: 3.4.16  LaCie 1.2.8 256MB


:woohoo :bananadance :mrgreen:

[minibike12]

W00t, nice!
Is this already with GPT support, or was this the test file?
It would be awesome if you can enable GPT this way.
Lots easier than loop device.

Btw, i've done some testing with the different offsets Mijzelf gave.
With the original offset of 3686809600 i get a speed of 9.3MB/s.
All the other offsets were 8mb/s.

I didn't have much time today.
But will do some more testing coming days.

[Mijzelf]

Btw, i've done some testing with the different offsets Mijzelf gave.
With the original offset of 3686809600 i get a speed of 9.3MB/s.
All the other offsets were 8mb/s

Maybe you can also test the raw disk speed?

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time dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda seek=1000000 bs=4096 count=262144

This will write 1GiB to the raw disk device, starting at about 4GiB.

I did it on my own nwsp2 after some careful checking

How did you check it? Congratulations with the result.

[fvdw]

yes this an U-boot with GPT support :mrgreen:

I did it on my own nwsp2 after some careful checking

How did you check it? Congratulations with the result.

First test was checking content of flash after writing, by reading it again and comparing, 100% match. The second check was a reboot, that worked so the new u-boot is at least capable of booting the nwsp2, third test was accessing it with clunc to see if the net console works and see the version, that works also.

Last test will be making a disk with a GPT partition table and see if that is accepted by the new bootloader.

But knowing it is compiled with efi partition support and comparing the code of that part with that of the Lite I expect it will work.

The only thing I now need is enough donations to buy a 3 TB disk , that will be the price to release this software :lmao :razz2 :whistle

[Mijzelf]

Duh! While I don't begrudge you a shiny new 3TB disk, this can be tested with any disk. GPT isn't reserved for >2TiB disks, it can be applied at any size. Well, to be clear, the disk must support LBA addressing, so I think it has to be bigger than 8GiB. But any Sata will do.

[minibike12]

It is indeed possible to test GPT with smaller hard disks.
But i want to test it for you with my 3TB WD green if you like :).

[minibike12]

Hey fvdw.

May i test the new U-Boot?
And can you tell me how to flash it, and confirm everything like you did.
I'm dying to test gpt with my 3tb disk :D

[fvdw]

let me try it first before putting your nwsp2 at risk, I will test it this evening

[fvdw]

ok I prepare a disk (1 TB)
This how it looks in fdisk

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Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
256 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121126 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16128 * 512 = 8257536 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdc1               1      121127   976762583+ ee EFI GPT
root@fvdwsl-nwsp2:/mnt #

This is how it looks in gdisk.

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 # ./gdisk -l /dev/sdc
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdc: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 740C1A75-5180-4575-B7B3-E189F19B8AA4
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   2         1050624         2099199   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   3         2099200         3147775   512.0 MiB   8200  Linux swap
   4         3147776         3155967   4.0 MiB     8300  Linux filesystem
   5         3155968         4728831   768.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   6         4728832         4745215   8.0 MiB     8300  Linux filesystem
   7         4745216         5793791   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   8         5793792      1953525134   928.8 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem
root@fvdwsl-nwsp2:/

Now lets see if the new bootloader of the nwsp2 classic can deal with it
(ps I prepared the disk on the nwsp2 so the kernel can deal with GPT partitions)

[minibike12]

Looks good!
Are the speeds higher with gpt in comparation with mbr?
Or is the speed of 25mb/s a limitation of the nwsp2 hardware.