eMMC upgrade

[EuvzO8]

Has anyone tried to replace stock eMMC (16Gb or 32Gb) with a bigger eMMC (in a phone repair shop for example)? Is it possible? What models are compatible?

[fxc]

Has anyone tried to replace stock eMMC (16Gb or 32Gb) with a bigger eMMC (in a phone repair shop for example)? Is it possible? What models are compatible?

That would not make sense IMO. The eMMC is soldered with ball grid array and would be quite involved and costly to swap it. MicroSD cards cost almost nothing and you can adjust your mount points to transfer data (such as personal files, applications etc.) to it.

[EuvzO8]

Has anyone tried to replace stock eMMC (16Gb or 32Gb) with a bigger eMMC (in a phone repair shop for example)? Is it possible? What models are compatible?

That would not make sense IMO. The eMMC is soldered with ball grid array and would be quite involved and costly to swap it. MicroSD cards cost almost nothing and you can adjust your mount points to transfer data (such as personal files, applications etc.) to it.

The main reason is speed. SD cards are noticeably slower on OG PP (even with faster cards). than eMMC. With vccq mod eMMC speeds can be around 125MB/s, but SD card achieves approximately 23 MB/s. This is five times slower.

https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_F...d_SD_cards?

[fxc]

Has anyone tried to replace stock eMMC (16Gb or 32Gb) with a bigger eMMC (in a phone repair shop for example)? Is it possible? What models are compatible?

That would not make sense IMO. The eMMC is soldered with ball grid array and would be quite involved and costly to swap it. MicroSD cards cost almost nothing and you can adjust your mount points to transfer data (such as personal files, applications etc.) to it.

The main reason is speed. SD cards are noticeably slower on OG PP (even with faster cards). than eMMC. With vccq mod eMMC speeds can be around 125MB/s, but SD card achieves approximately 23 MB/s. This is five times slower.

https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_F...d_SD_cards?

The eMMC is slightly faster, can be twice as fast. The vccq mod is not advised, only works with some eMMCs, is highly risky and you make all images incompatible, so I would estimate there are less than a dozen people in total who made the mod, out of tens of thousands of sold PinePhones.

You can put stuff relevant for speed on the eMMC, like people used to do with their system on SSDs when the capacity was low. Everything else makes no reasonable economical sense.

[EuvzO8]

[quote pid="119203" dateline="1691994961"]
The eMMC is slightly faster, can be twice as fast. The vccq mod is not advised, only works with some eMMCs, is highly risky and you make all images incompatible, so I would estimate there are less than a dozen people in total who made the mod, out of tens of thousands of sold PinePhones
[/quote]

JFYI I've tried vccq mod and have performance measurements before and after for 16/2 PP. Here is my comparison of eMMC performance with SD card performance.

0. SD card (Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I U3 V30 A2 + ADP)

root@mobian:/home/mobian# hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk0
/dev/mmcblk0:
Timing cached reads:  802 MB in  2.00 seconds = 400.36 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:  66 MB in  3.07 seconds =  21.51 MB/sec
root@mobian:/home/mobian# hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk0

1. eMMC speed (default, no vccq mod)

mobian@mobian:~$ sudo hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk2

/dev/mmcblk2:
Timing cached reads:  942 MB in  2.00 seconds = 470.48 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 242 MB in  3.02 seconds =  80.08 MB/sec

80.08/21.51 = 3.72 times faster than SD


2. eMMC speed (with vccq mod)

root@mobian:/home/mobian# hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk2

/dev/mmcblk2:
Timing cached reads:  894 MB in  2.00 seconds = 446.58 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 358 MB in  3.01 seconds = 118.98 MB/sec

118.98 / 21.51 = 5.53 times faster than SD

SD card is considerably slower than eMMC.

You can put stuff relevant for speed on the eMMC, like people used to do with their system on SSDs when the capacity was low. Everything else makes no reasonable economical sense.

This is what I'm doing right now. 16Gb isn't that big. I do understand, that BGA replacement is risky and costly operation. But maybe someone tried that.

[brken]

[quote pid="119203" dateline="1691994961"]
The eMMC is slightly faster, can be twice as fast. The vccq mod is not advised, only works with some eMMCs, is highly risky and you make all images incompatible, so I would estimate there are less than a dozen people in total who made the mod, out of tens of thousands of sold PinePhones

JFYI I've tried vccq mod and have performance measurements before and after for 16/2 PP. Here is my comparison of eMMC performance with SD card performance.

0. SD card (Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I U3 V30 A2 + ADP)

root@mobian:/home/mobian# hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk0
/dev/mmcblk0:
Timing cached reads:  802 MB in  2.00 seconds = 400.36 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:  66 MB in  3.07 seconds =  21.51 MB/sec
root@mobian:/home/mobian# hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk0

1. eMMC speed (default, no vccq mod)

mobian@mobian:~$ sudo hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk2

/dev/mmcblk2:
Timing cached reads:  942 MB in  2.00 seconds = 470.48 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 242 MB in  3.02 seconds =  80.08 MB/sec

80.08/21.51 = 3.72 times faster than SD


2. eMMC speed (with vccq mod)

root@mobian:/home/mobian# hdparm -t -T /dev/mmcblk2

/dev/mmcblk2:
Timing cached reads:  894 MB in  2.00 seconds = 446.58 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 358 MB in  3.01 seconds = 118.98 MB/sec

118.98 / 21.51 = 5.53 times faster than SD

SD card is considerably slower than eMMC.

You can put stuff relevant for speed on the eMMC, like people used to do with their system on SSDs when the capacity was low. Everything else makes no reasonable economical sense.

This is what I'm doing right now. 16Gb isn't that big. I do understand, that BGA replacement is risky and costly operation. But maybe someone tried that.
[/quote]






What did you do to get the vccq mod to work? I added the the files and it boots properly and says it is updated to new speed but, i still get hdparm at 86mb/s. 

I am running arch but am just looking for other non PM os knowledge.

Info i used: https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pi...issues/263