“Wow, this changes everything! Booting from an NVMe SSD with Gen3 enabled is insanly fast. I'm considering running my Raspberry Pi 5 8GB and Ubuntu as my daily driver.”
“Recieved the NVME base the other day (already had the Pi5 since before Christmas with OS installed on microSD. Added the NVME base which was simple to do following the video tutorials. Attached a 256GB NVME drive (one on the compatible list) and the pi detected it fine.
I then followed the instrucitons to make the Pi boot from NVME by default and mirrored the SD card over to the NVME drive, shutdown, removed the SD card and hey presto - all worked perfectly. Much fast boot times, but I havnt delved more into it yet. I run the Pi headless and the main reason for NVME was for improved lifespan.
One issue, I need a new case. There are not yet any cases that support the NVME base (other than one 3D print I found, but I dont have a 3D printer). I am waiting for Pimoroni to release the updated PiBow case or something simular. Right now I modded my existing case and the NVME base sits underneath it, but it could be better (fully enclosed)”
“Wow... this this is amazing. With a Kingston NV2 500GB NVMe and pciex1_gen=3 set on the Pi 5, the storage benchmarks I'm getting are literally 10x faster than with a top-of-the-line SanDisk Extreme Pro 256GB. Even with the default pciex1_gen=2, the speed is still at least 8x faster than the SD card. This is a massive improvement in throughput. Boot time is blink-and-you'll-miss-it fast, especially if the NVMe is set to first boot priority. I can now use the SD card solely for music storage while the operating system runs entirely on the NVMe. For the price, this is unbeatable.”
“Im not sure if i broke it using the tweasers that were needed to put in the ribbon cable or it was doa but i had a tuff time with the ribbon. Doesnt work in any orientation (after cmd line setup). Not easy to set-up imo. Also, one of the plastic clips broke during install. Either way i cant use it. Good form bad function. Maybe im extra salty because i waited 2 months for it or bc i lovd the idea of nvme pi boot but she was mine and walked out on our wedding day.”
Ahoy!
Sorry to hear about the problems with the NVMe base :c
If you could please shoot an email to support@pimoroni.com with some photos of your setup/ ribbon cable, our team will be able to get something sorted for you c:
