Overview

Giving your Raspberry Pi 5 speedy data transfer and super-fast boot!

The X1015 is a PCIe extension board designed for the Raspberry Pi 5. It adheres to the official Raspberry Pi reference schematic and has the same features as the official M.2 HAT+, so x1015 supports also Hailo AI acceleration module built around the Hailo-8L chip from Raspberry Pi AI Kit, guaranteeing ease of use and long-term support through updates to the Raspberry Pi OS. With its sleek and compact design, this shield allows for easy attachment of various M.2 SSD lengths (including 2280, 2260, 2242, and 2230) to your Raspberry Pi 5.

Equipped with a PCIe 2.0/3.0 interface, the X1015 offers lightning-fast data transfer speeds of up to 8Gbps, enabling you to transfer large amounts of data within seconds. Its compatibility with the Raspberry Pi official passive cooler ensures optimal heat dissipation without compromising performance. The inclusion of mounting holes and standoffs provides added protection for your solid-disk drives while effectively dissipating heat.

With the X1015, you no longer need to guess the reading or writing status of your SSD, as it features a built-in LED light that indicates the current activity. This makes it easier for you to monitor your SSD's performance.

Whether you're looking to create a home media center or build a Network-attached storage (NAS) system for storing and streaming your own videos, music, and photos, the X1015 can serve as the perfect storage solution. Furthermore, it supports operating system booting from your SSD, resulting in faster application launches, web serving, and file copying.

Geekworm PCIe to NVME Sets:

After the release of the Raspberry Pi AI Kit, we tested four PIPs: X1001, X1004, X1011, and M901. X1001, X1004, and M901 all support the hailo-8 ai ​​accelerator, but X1011 does not.

It should be noted that X1004 uses ASMedia ASM1182e PCIe switch, and X1011 uses ASM1184e, they can't support PCIe Gen 3 speed, so even though we forced to enable PCIe Gen 3.0 setting in Raspberry Pi 5, it is limited by ASMedia ASM1182e PCIe switch, and speed is still PCIe Gen 2.0 5Gbps speed. when you use an hailo-8 ai accelerator, Raspberry Pi Fundation highly recommends using PCIe 3.0 to achieve best performance with your AI Kit.

Our tentative conclusions are as follows:

• If you need to use hailo-8 ai accelerator with high performance, it is recommended to use X1015/X1002/X1003/M901/ the official M.2 HAT+ etc. When choosing these PIP boards, you should focus on whether there is a conflict between the camera cable and the PIP board installation, and enable PCIe3.0 to use hailo-8 ai accelerator. At the same time, you need to prepare an SD card as the system disk.
• If you don't care about the high performance brought by PCIe 3.0, then you can consider using X1004, so that you can use any socket of X1004 to install NVME SSD as the system disk, and another socket to install hailo-8 ai accelerator, so as to have both.

Important Notes

NVMe SSD Incompatibility List

We recommend avoiding the following NVMe SSD drives which is equipped with a Phison controller due to their proven incompatibility:

• WD Blue SN550 series (Solved! Refer to New rpi-eeprom-update 2024-01-24 WD Blue SN550 nvme works now.)
• WD Blue SN580 series
• WD Green SN350 series (Solved! Refer to NVMe_SSD_boot_with_the_Raspberry_Pi_5#comment-4602)
• WD Black SN850 series
• WD Black SN770
• WD SN740
• Inland tn446 nvme drive
• Corsair MP600 SSD
• Micron 2450 SSD (Can be recognised but not support boot from NVME)
• Other NVMe SSD drivers equipped with the same Phison controller

These specific models have demonstrated compatibility issues, and it is advisable to avoid them when considering NVMe SSD options for the X10xx series NVMe shield. You can run "lspci" command to check the controller brand of the SSD.

We confirm that the following SSDs are incompatible:

• Micron 2200 256GB M.2 NVMe Gen3 x4, MODEL: MTFDHBA256TCH, The SSD is recognized but I cannot boot from it.

Also note:

• Compatible with M.2 NVMe SSDs only, Not compatible with M.2 SATA SSDs, M.2 PCIe AHCI SSDs, or other M.2 non-NVMe devices
• Older NVMe drives with less efficient flash media may not perform as well as newer drives
• New NVMe SSDs are not partitioned and will need to be both partitioned and formatted when first connected to the Raspberry Pi before they will be accessed in the Explorer.
• We get feedback from customers that Polaris Controller will also have compatibility problems. Please replace the other SSD test if it not work, whether it is compatible with the Raspberry Pi 5 does not depend on the X100X series boards
• NVMEs using the MAP1202 controller may not support PCIe Gen 2, and must be forced to enable PCIe Gen 3 in order to be recognised. This is due to the fact that the controller is not backward compatible with PCIe Gen 2, and NVMEs using this controller will have compatibility issues, and are not recommended for use. Can refer to https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/644984347

PS: There is also feedback from buyers that even NVME SSDs with Phison controller are supported after updating the latest firmware. Please refer to go to: X1001#comment-4638

Features

Matching Case

Refer to P579/P579-V2

Packing List

• X1015 V1.2 PCIe to NVMe shield x 1
• GPIO Header x 1 (2*20 Double Row)
• M2.5*18 F/F Spacer x 4
• CM2.5*5 Screw x 4
• M2*4 Screw x 1 (to fix SSD)
• SSD Copper Pillar x 1 (to fix 2230/2242/2260 SSD)
• PCIe FFC Cable x 2 (Length: 8.5*40mm, 1pc is for backup

User Manual

• Hardware: X1015 Hardware
• Software tutorials: NVMe SSD boot with the Raspberry Pi 5

• Raspberry pi 5 pcie connector pin out

After-sales

Monday-Friday (9:30-6:30) Saturday (9:30-5:30)

Email: services01@spotpear.com