Getting a micro recording to HDD

[large_ghostman]

Where do I need to start to get a MCU to talk to a HDD? the HDD dosnt have to talk to a pc as well in the normal sense. The HDD is for storing burst's of data, then later it can spit it out to a pc via another MCU if needed over serial or usb. The data will be wireless and come in bursts of upto 1mbps, for speed I think it best to drop into FRAM or SRAM and have a RTOS plonk it on the HDD as and when there is a break in data.
Has anyone got a sata or pata HDD to talk to a micro?
My problem is I dont know where to start, part of me think's some kind of FAT File system, while bits think that wouldnt be needed? The reason for the HDD is purely size etc and the fact I realy dont want to store the data on a SD card or something like that, what I want is something the size of a laptop HDD, infact I want a laptop HDD connected to a MCU, the micro isnt decided yet but will be pic 32bit (just started with them) or ARM big boy CORTEX4 or CORTEX3, unless I find a mad way of using a 8 bit chip , the radio link is a 8051 with built in transceiver, it has spi and i2c usart etc for comms to talk to FRAM/SRAM another MCU or the HDD direct depending on what I find out. So anyone got a start point for me to google?

 

[Wp100]

Hi,

Sounds like you need to look at something like the Ras PI rather than a Pic.
https://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-mount-and-use-a-usb-hard-disk-with-the-raspberry-pi

 

[large_ghostman]

Hi,

Sounds like you need to look at something like the Ras PI rather than a Pic.
https://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-mount-and-use-a-usb-hard-disk-with-the-raspberry-pi

Dont mean to be rude but the world thinks all the answer's are in a pi!!! I absolutely hate them things!! I got one for Christmas and gave it away to a kid down the road with no toys. No idea why I dislike them so much, maybe its the fact they are a poor pc on a board, NO IDEA but I do dislike them a great deal.

 

[large_ghostman]

The other thing is the pi takes alot of the knowledge and learning out of things, I dont see why a micro cant talk to a HDD, surely its a case of just working out the protocols and getting clever? The easy answer would be a micro sd card, you can get huge ones but I have been there and my thinking say's HDD this time.

 

[Wp100]

the pi takes alot of the knowledge and learning out of things..

(pic) surely its a case of just working out the protocols and getting clever?.

Hi,

hmmm.. think if it was so easy to use a hdd with a pic you would have seen plenty of examples by now.

I suggested the Pi as it can do Hdd, but my first though was simply to use a laptop as your front end anyway.

I'm the last to be able to learn things like linux program code but thought with your young mind you would have soon latched on to it.

Alternative to the Pi , the name might make a difference

https://beagleboard.org/

 

[atferrari]

Not SATA but there is a project of someone writing / reading and IDE disk. IIRC it was implemented with a PIC. That could give you ideas I think.

 

[mdanh2002]

Not SATA but there is a project of someone writing / reading and IDE disk. IIRC it was implemented with a PIC. That could give you ideas I think.

SATA is definitely out of reach for a PIC. With IDE I think you'll probably need a PIC with a lot of interface pins - more than 40 and most likely not available in PDIP package (easy for breadboarding). Then comes the question of implementing the IDE protocol, primary/secondary master/slave disk and the like, and finally reading the file system (FAT/FAT32/NTFS) I think it would be far more cost effective to just interface the PIC with an SD card using the Microchip Memory Disk Drive library with built-in SPI Module. It supports FAT/FAT32 formats. On a PIC24FJ64GA002 @ 32MHz, I achieve approximately 18KB/s read speed using this method. Much easier to get it working compared to a hard disk drive.

 

[NorthGuy]

By the description of the task, looks like you don't need a non-volatile storage. IMHO, an external RAM would work better than HDD.

 

[large_ghostman]

In the end I didnt need it! I went for a bank of FRAM, it's working ok and gives me around 6 weeks of data before I have to off load it. Thanks all

 

[picbits]

Look at interfacing with SD cards - surprisingly easy and only require a couple of PIC pins.

 

[dr pepper]

I looked into this a while back, for ide, most drives read blocks of data, the smallest being 512 bytes.
There are various control functions needed to get it to work.
I remember looking at the commodore amiga operatign system to see how it worked, as the amiga controls a fdd or a hdd directly using software, there is no disk controller ic, I soon decided not to go ahead as it looked tricky.
I'd start by looking for a suitable disk controller chip, there are a few for ide, I've never looked for one thats sata, there probably is a couple around, still might need more processing power than a midrange pic though.