NVMe Recommendations

[John BOSSERT]

Recommendations for a 2230 or 2242 to sit on an RPi M.2 HAT. Will 256Gb be a reasonable first drive (or is the price difference between that and a 512Gb so small as to indicate the larger drive?)

Trying not to overspend, but don't want to buy junk... Thanks!

[Aled Morris]

I’ve been buying “Integral 256GB M.2 NVMe 2242 PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD” on Amazon

The price difference 128GB->256GB is very small but there is a hike if you need 512GB or more. 

Aled

On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 at 00:08, John BOSSERT <john.p....@gmail.com> wrote:

Recommendations for a 2230 or 2242 to sit on an RPi M.2 HAT. Will 256Gb be a reasonable first drive (or is the price difference between that and a 512Gb so small as to indicate the larger drive?)

Trying not to overspend, but don't want to buy junk... Thanks!

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[Shawn Goodin]

I bought this one - Crucial 500 GB for about $40.  It's been just fine.

Crucial P3 500GB PCIe Gen3 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD, up to 3500MB/s - CT500P3SSD8 https://a.co/d/h8RGXsj

On Sat, Jul 13, 2024, 7:08 PM John BOSSERT <john.p....@gmail.com> wrote:

Recommendations for a 2230 or 2242 to sit on an RPi M.2 HAT. Will 256Gb be a reasonable first drive (or is the price difference between that and a 512Gb so small as to indicate the larger drive?)

Trying not to overspend, but don't want to buy junk... Thanks!

--

[Shawn Goodin]

Whoops - although I bought it for my RPi, it's a 2280 form factor.  I have the adapter that goes underneath the RPi, so I guess it's not a hat.

[Michael J. Kupec]

I bought one of the dual NVMe carriers for my Pi-5 that fits on the back of the unit. Its this unit: 

Nice thing with it is, the back side is like a cover for the Pi-5 so you don't need to use the one in the kit. 

Been thinking of staring with a 500Gb stick and later either get a second as a backup drive or larger for more applications/data. 

Have a great Day!

Michael J Kupec 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 15, 2024, at 12:50 PM, Shawn Goodin <sha...@carolina.rr.com> wrote:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-10/CAAqDiNGZumwXJiWhj%2BgUHWjrNebakLE2zyU1b2sGN9eJxx9rpA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ken Hansen]

Resent to entire group

Ken

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ken Hansen <n2...@w5fc.org>
Date: July 15, 2024 at 15:01:36 CDT
To: John BOSSERT <john.p....@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [pidp-10] NVMe Recommendations

There are more variables than size & capacity to consider. Sometimes there are great speed differences (read/write, read write IOPS) not only between brands but also capacity.

I did a search for a 2280 SSD for a desktop, among the cheaper models at my local retailer (Microcenter), and there is a speed benefit for getting a larger capacity SSD:

The lower capacity SSD is one-half to one-third the IOPS speed of the slightly more expensive higher-capacity SSDs.

Of course, the RPi 5 interface can not fully exploit the higher speed these are capable of (it's a Gen 2.0, x1 interface).

On the other hand, what possible "need" is there for a half terabyte of storage? I bet all the DECUS software that could ever be run on the PDP-10 would struggle to fill 2 GB. (Just my opinion, but this project isn't about 'needs', is it? LOL)

Ken

[johntk...@gmail.com]

Be careful when buying an SSD and confirm it works with your specific Pi HAT. Support for NVMe  is still patchy, and I've bought several SSDs that were supposed to be supported and simply don't work. Getting confirmation that a particular model definitely works will save you a lot of messing around.

[Steven Hirsch]

I'm having great success with a single-card version of the Pimoroni backside hat and a Crucial 500GB SSD.  It's even stable with the experimental Gen 3 support.

[sunnyboy010101]

I bought the Patriot P300 M.2 PCIe Gen 3 x4 256GB Low-Power Consumption SSD from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B082BWY2C2?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

It worked very well with this "top mount" hat: GeeekPi Metal Case with N04 PCIe M.2 Key-M NVMe SSD PCIe Peripheral Board for Raspberry Pi 5 (yea, I put the first pi5 in a case for testing), bought from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CYP28CKM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

The top-mount hat can't be used with the PiDP10 hardware as it steals some of the GPIO pins, rendering them unusable for the PiDP10. So I needed a bottom hat.

However, the top hat and Patriot 256gb NVME worked so well (on continuously since about June 20 2024, so I ordered a second identical NVME. This time I put it in a "bottom mount" hat: GeeekPi N07 PCIe M.2 M-Key NVMe SSD PCIe Peripheral Board for Raspberry Pi 5, Support M.2 Key-M NVMe SSD 2230/2242/2260/2280 , again from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CWD266XR?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details.

This bottom hat is quite different. Same flexi cable from Pi5 to m.2 hat, but the connection to the GPIO pins (uses same ones) is from the bottom and they are spring-loaded gold pins that contact once you bolt the thing in place.

It's all working fine, EXCEPT it kept losing the WIFI after about 5 min. WIFI would still show up on the modem/router info screen, but ping would not find the Pi5. I read up on it and one person said the m.2 board might be the problem.

Anyway, what I've now done is plug in a wired network cable to the Pi5, and it's been working now for a lot longer than ever before. What's most odd is that not only is the wired internet working (figures) but the WIFI is ALSO WORKING for just as long. I need to diagnose further, but it's weird that plugging the Pi5 in would resolve the problem with WIFI.

Additional info: I built the first Pi5 using an SD card and imaging with the on-line Pi imager. It worked fine. Once I bought the first NVME and "top hat" I cloned the SD card to the NVME, changed boot order, removed the SD card (power off) and rebooted. All worked well.

For the SECOND PI5 with the bottom m.2 hat, I just took the original SD card and inserted into the second Pi5 and booted. Once the hat and NMVE were installed I cloned the SD card to this second Pi5/NVME, changed boot order, removed the SD card (power off) and rebooted. Again. all was well except this odd WIFI issue. Now the m.2 'hat' is different, and I have yet to investigate one of the m.2 parameters that may be involved in the problem. The top hat did NOT want the fancy parameter (enhanced spec) but I put that in the bottom hat param file, so I may have to revisit that.

Still - regarding NVME I am quite pleased with the Patriot cards I bought.

[Steven Hirsch]

Your comment about the flaky WiFi resonated.  Mine has extremely poor connectivity as well, to the point where I gave up and plugged in an ethernet cable.  The Pi3 in my PiDP-11 has much better WiFi reliability than the Pi5.  I'm tempted to unplug the NvME module and see if it improves matters.

[sunnyboy010101]

Yea, now that I've plugged in a wired ethernet cable, both wired and wifi have been up for over 2 hours without a hiccup.

Unfortunately, as with all such things, I also fiddled with the m.2 'bottom hat' before plugging in. I gently squeezed the spring pins to GPIO and removed/replaced the flexi-cable between the two boards. So I probably "fixed the problem" before ever plugging in the wired ethernet.

At some point I'll test my 'fixed it' theory by pulling the wired ethernet, but for now I'm just happy it's working.

Also again - the 'top hat' m.2 card worked right out of the box and has been running 24/7 since mid-June, so if it's the m.2 hat, it's these bottom 'spring pin' ones possibly.

[sunnyboy010101]

I'm going to post this here as well in the 'wifi trouble' thread. 

I fixed my WIFI issues on the new Pi5. Brief update first; I have two almost identical PI5 setups - one with a top m.2 board and a new one with a bottom m.2 board. The top m.2 has been working (with wifi) without issues 24/7 since mid-June. The new one would work but then wifi would just cut out after a couple of minutes. I found last evening that plugging in the network port worked as expected, but also made the wifi work. More curious, if I unplugged the wired lan, the wifi quit instantly. Plug it back in - wifi came up instantly.

I had read elsewhere that some people were having issues with NVME m.2 'hats' on some Pi5 setups giving the same wifi issues. As both m.2 hats were the same manufacturer and possibly the same chip, it seemed odd that one would have issues but not both.

So I re-checked all the parameters and found a problem: the new board's instruction pamplet said to add "dtparam=pcie1x" while the working pi5 had  "dtparam=pciex1". I checked on the official Raspberry Pi documents online, and the parameter was indeed pciex1. (love those bad pamplets). I changed the new board to the correct parameter, and added the "tdparam=pcie1x_gen=3" as well (recommended for this new board) and after rebooting - WIFI worked properly. As both boards were same manufacturer I added the gen=3 parameter to the first board as well.

As of 12 hours later, both boards are still running wifi without any issues.

[johntk...@gmail.com]

"and added the "tdparam=pcie1x_gen=3" as well"

You mean dtparam=pciex1_gen=3 correct? :-)

[sunnyboy010101]

Yea, typo and you can't edit your post after. (at least it didn't offer that )