Which mPCIe Slot for mSATA [Solved]

Hi,

I try t get an small Kingston 30GB SMS200S3 mSATA ssd to work
in my omina route. Used the free slot above the sim adapter but the
there is no new partition shown in /proc/partitions also nothing shows
up in dmesg. Do I have to use one of the other two slots currently
occupied by the wlan moduls?

achim~

(Sadly) I think that you are using the right slot…

Maybe a driver thingy?

Please keep us updated (I’m planning on using an mSATA too).

All the ahci modules are loading. Compared dmesg output with and without the ssd installed and there is no difference. Ordered an USB3 adapter for the mSATA to verify the ssd is working. Will post results here.

I think it is the wrong slot. mSATA should be the slot at the cpu. Schematic says CN7A and the one with the SIM is labelled CN62 on the pictures and in the schematic.

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Good catch, it works in that slot. Abit laborious because thats where the small wifi card is mounted and there are screws at the backside of the board so the mainboard must be dismantled. Due to the cable lents between cards and antennas the small card must move to the outher lost above the sim card adapter.
Seeing an sda device now and three wireless networks. Thank you for the tip the labels on the mainboard are barely readable with an magnifier.

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achim71 & adminX: thank you very much for posting this important information. I plan to use a mSATA card as NAS (Samsung SSD 850EVO 1TB) too.

Does this dual-purpose slot auto-detect whether there is an mPCIe or mSATA card inserted? Or must it be configured in some config file of the OS.

Does the OS auto-detect when the 2.4GHz wifi card get’s moved to the mCPIe slot above the SIM card adapter?

Also, could you briefly describe the steps, how to get the mSATA drive working after it is detected. The Turris documentation regarding NAS installation is not yet translated to English.

Dual-purpose slot should detect mPCIe/mSATA and OS will detect your card at new slot. But it probably will not recognize it as a same card, so you will have to redo all the configuration. Or modify the existing one to point to the right card.

Does that mean that one would have to replace the WiFi cards in order to place an mSATA?

I’m getting a bit nervous that I have bought a device that I will break in 2 weeks…

(I’m a software guy, hardware tweaks scare me…).

P.S. This guy is fixing his laptop as I would (not really, I’m prolly above average with hardware… but it still scares me, as it takes time that I do not have…):

The small wifi card must be moved from the slot next to the cpu to the outer slot. Because it is an short card a few holdings must be adjusted. Abit more effort than to put the msata card in the free slot but it’s just a dozend screws, not difficult.

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Ok, that I can manage! :smirk:

Yeah, quite disappointed…this should have been mentioned somewhere among provided documentation. Or even better, the wifi cards should have been placed at rights slots right away. Would save me a solid 45 minutes of disassembling, assembling, trying, and repeating :slight_smile:

After placing the mSata (Crucial MX200 250GB) to the 3rd slot (next to the CPU), the disk recognized as /dev/sda according to dmesg.

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too late for you, but now there’s a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71_M2N3ga7s

Yeah, I always have to go the hard way :slight_smile:
I just finished formatting and mounting of the disk, all seems fine so far.

Now I also have lost my wifi config for the card that I shifted to another slot.
Need to find out how to reconfigure it once again…

EDIT: ok, that one was easy - just updated configuration in /etc/config/wireless and rebooted

Or even better, the wifi cards should have been placed at rights slots right away.

Well, there is no right position. The setup router comes with suits good for the installation of LTE expansion pack. It’s actually good that the mSATA slot is not shared with the SIM slot so one can use SSD and LTE modem at the same time.

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Hmm, you’re right. So maybe just a paper note or an arrow on the PCB :slight_smile: - too late for that, I know.

Hi,
could you share what exactly is needed to modify? I assume only name of the device?.. It isnt mentioned on video tutorial (HW part looks easy enough).

If you don’t mind losing your wireless config, the simplest method is to remove /etc/config/wireless and run wifi detect > /etc/config/wireless (or reboot the router), then re-configure the WiFi again. Alternatively you can just change the wireless.radioN.path for the wireless cards. There are multiple ways how to get the paths, I prefer renaming the wireless config and running wifi detect, then renaming the config back and adjusting the paths.

Well, just pay attention to the physical pcie address and adjust the other attributes accordingly.
My config follows (wifi names/passwords anonymized :wink:)

BEFORE:

config wifi-device 'radio0'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option channel '36'
	option country 'CZ'
	option hwmode '11a'
	option path 'platform/soc/soc:pcie-controller/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:02:00.0'
	option htmode 'VHT80'
	option disabled '0'

config wifi-iface
	option device 'radio0'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option disabled '0'
	option ssid 'first_wifi_name'
	option hidden '0'
	option encryption 'psk2+tkip+aes'
	option key 'first_wifi_password'

config wifi-device 'radio1'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option channel '11'
	option country 'CZ'
	option hwmode '11g'
	option path 'platform/soc/soc:pcie-controller/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0'
	option htmode 'HT20'
	option disabled '0'

config wifi-iface
	option device 'radio1'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option disabled '0'
	option ssid 'second_wifi_name'
	option encryption 'psk2+tkip+aes'
	option key 'second_wifi_password'
	option hidden '1'

config wifi-device  radio2
	option type     mac80211
	option channel  11
	option country  'CZ'
	option hwmode	11g
	option path	'platform/soc/soc:pcie-controller/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/0000:03:00.0'
	option htmode	HT20
	option country  CZ
	# REMOVE THIS LINE TO ENABLE WIFI:
	option disabled 1

config wifi-iface
	option device   radio2
	option network  lan
	option mode     ap
	option ssid     Turris
	option encryption none

AFTER:

config wifi-device 'radio0'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option channel '36'
	option country 'CZ'
	option hwmode '11a'
	option path 'platform/soc/soc:pcie-controller/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:02:00.0'
	option htmode 'VHT80'
	option disabled '0'

config wifi-iface
	option device 'radio0'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option disabled '0'
	option ssid 'first_wifi_name'
	option hidden '0'
	option encryption 'psk2+tkip+aes'
	option key 'first_wifi_password'

config wifi-device  radio1
	option type     mac80211
	option channel  11
	option country  'CZ'
	option hwmode	11g
	option path	'platform/soc/soc:pcie-controller/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/0000:03:00.0'
	option htmode	HT20
	option country  CZ
	option disabled 0

config wifi-iface
	option device 'radio1'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option disabled '0'
	option ssid 'second_wifi_name'
	option encryption 'psk2+tkip+aes'
	option key 'second_wifi_password'
	option hidden '1'
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Thank you! Saving as docs :slight_smile: Hope in few month there will be more juicy turris official docs :slight_smile:

I wish the video had mentioned the need to manually update the PCIe addresses. I had my router apart a couple of times shuffling cards back and forth trying to figure out why I lost 2.4 GHz Wifi after installing an mSATA drive. :disappointed: