upgrading eMMC Storage

willem oldemans

Hi

I have an 2/16GB upboard, i find the flash to small ( I know, should have ordered a bigger one )

I would like to upgrade the eMMC16-M525 by (BGA) soldering a new nand chip? besides the question if it is wise to do, i know the risk and I'm an expert in BGA rework and reballing
1. What are the limits, (64GB/128GB?)
2. What happens when I mount an empty eMMC?
3. Is there a bootloader, EFI or an RCW (Reset control word) partition pre-programmed in the flash, and if yes, what is needed to program this?

Robert Shelton

Depending on use / environment, it might be simpler to add a USB thumb drive for storage. I run a pair of 32G SanDisk CZ43 on boards that need more storage. A trick I learned from the RasPi community was to move the root partition to a USB drive. For the RPi, the motivation was minimizing SD card failure by placing high-activity files "off" the notoriously fragile SD. For the Up that suffers no such concern, it's just cheap and scalable storage. Another, though more costly, option is the pi2design SSD hat. Up partners with pi2design; and sells a version in the Up Store with the mounting hardware needed for the Up board. Those can take up to 1Tb eSATA SSD.

Elie De Brauwer

Is there something required on the eMMC ? Not really, now they are just empty but with a partition table, but you can simply plug in a bootable USB stick and partition it, install a bootloader and OS from there, so that's the easy part.

As for the limits I'd suggest to take a peek in the cpu datasheet.

willem oldemans

Hi All,

Thanks for the suggestions, I have orderd a 32GB eMMC chip on eBay and have successfully replaced it. it running fine now!

If needed, i can help anyone with this
(DenBosch Netherlands)

Marcello

have you investigated 32-->64 or even further?

willem oldemans

I did the investigation but wanted to check first if it could be successfull, I even believe a 128GB will work, but found them a bit to expensive for an experiment

specification of current populated flash
Kingston EMMC16G-M525
- 16GB
- Emmc 5.1 HS400
- 11.5x13x1.0


I made a list with the options i found to be feasible

Sk-hynix - H26M64208EMR (64GB)
Samsung - KLMCG4JENB-B041 (64GB)
Toshiba - THGBMBG8D4KBAIR (32GB)
Toshiba - THGBMHG9C4LBAIR (64GB)
Toshiba - THGBMHT0C8LBAIG (128GB)
http://www.ebay.nl/itm/THGBMHT0C8LBAIG-TFBGA-153-eMMC5-1-128GB-Flash-Memory/222200935717

Marcello

What temperature did you use for the hot air?
Did you apply flux?
I did something like this before but with less pads...