Overview

Introduction

It is a PCIe to M.2 multi-functional adapter board designed specifically for Raspberry Pi 5, converting Micro HDMI to HDMI female port for more convenient connection, compatible with 2230 / 2242 size M.2 hard drives, supporting Gen2 and Gen3 modes, and supporting booting PI5 from SSD.

Features

• Supports NVMe protocol M.2 interface hard drives, featuring high-speed read and write, and high work efficiency
• PCI-E×1 Gen2 or Gen3 mode
• Only supports PI5
• Compatible with M.2 hard drives of 2230 / 2242 sizes
• Onboard operational indicator lights, the PWR is continuously lit when powered on, and the ACT blinks during read and write operations, making the operational status easily visible
• Supports dual 4K output
• Freely choose Type-C interface power supply or terminal power supply (only 5V supported)
• Convert Micro HDMI to HDMI female port

Usage Guide

Hardware Connection

Pay attention to the direction of the cable, and the connection is shown in the figure:
 

Note: 3PIN is a thin line for serial port connection, if serial port debugging is not needed, it can be left unconnected

Mount

1. Enable PCIE interface

PI5B defaults to not having the PCIE interface enabled. Add to /boot/firmware/config.txt:
dtparam=pciex1

2. PCIE is gen2 by default, if you need to enable PCIE gen3, then add following to /boot/firmware/config.txt:

dtparam=pciex1_gen=3

3. After the modification, reboot the PI5, and the device can be recognized.

As shown in the figure below, SM2263 is identified as my SSD solid state drives, and the other PI5 is the RPI chip

4. Partition, skip this step if you have partitioned and formatted on other platforms (Note: Partitioning will delete all data on the SSD, please proceed with caution)

Lsblk     This command is executed to view the disk (if you want to see the details, run the sudo fdisk -l command)

Partition: 
sudo fdisk /dev/nvme0n1    The device number is the total device number, do not add p1, that is just a partition
How to use the partitioning tool fdisk:
n New partition
q Quit without saving
p Print the partition table
m Print the selection menu
D Delete the partition
w Save and exit
t Modify the ID number
Add the partition and execute n, then save and exit with w

5. Format

sudo mkfs.     Execute the command and press Tab key, you will see a lot of different suffixes, and the different suffixes are the formats you need to format

If I want to format it in ext4 file format, then execute the command:
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1
Wait a moment, once all "done" appear as below, it indicates that the formatting is completed

6. Mount

Create a mount directory
sudo mkdir toshiba
Mount the device
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 ./toshiba
Check the disk status
df -h

Read/Write Test

Enter the directory where the disk is mounted

cd toshiba

• Free up the memory

sudo sh -c "sync && echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches"

• Copy Raspberry Pi memory content to the hard disk (write)

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=./test_write count=2000 bs=1024k

• Copy the hard drive content to the Raspberry Pi memory (/etc/fstab read )

 sudo dd if=./test_write of=/dev/null count=2000 bs=1024k

• Note: The test results vary for different cards and environments. The Raspberry Pi is significantly affected. If you want to test accurate performance, use a PC for the test
  

Auto Mount

Test shows there's no issue. If it's not required to be used as a system disk, but only for expanding the disk, set it to auto-mount

sudo nano /etc/fstab

#Add at the end
/dev/nvme0n1p1  /home/pi/toshiba  ext4  defaults  0  0
#/dev/nvme0n1p1 is the device name, /home/pi/toshiba refers to mounting to a directory, ext4 is the file system type, defaults uses the default mount option
#Make the changes take effect (reboot only after testing, otherwise it will fail to mount and boot)
sudo mount -a

#Then reboot
Check the device with lsblk

NVMe SSD Boot

Boot the Raspberry Pi with a TF card first, mount and test it, and make sure the hardware can work properly

Choose one of the following methods

Method 1

1. Run the following command:

sudo raspi-config

2. Reboot Raspberry Pi

If you find you can't modify it multiple times, please reconnect to the network and then try to modify it (wait for the network to synchronize the time automatically), or modify the file after setting the correct time

3. Flash the system to NVME, then connect the NVME to the expansion board, remove the TF card and power it on again

Method 2

1. Modify the BOOT_ORDER in the Raspberry Pi boot loader configuration:

sudo rpi-eeprom-config --edit 
Modify BOOT_ORDER=0xf41 to BOOT_ORDER=0xf416

For more information, please refer to BOOT_ORDER 

2. Reboot Raspberry Pi

If you find you can't modify it multiple times, please reconnect to the network and then try to modify it (wait for the network to synchronize the time automatically), or modify the file after setting the correct time

3. Flash the system to NVME, then connect the NVME to the expansion board, remove the TF card and power it on again