Is anyone successfully using M.2 storage with the P550? What drive are you using?
Hello @tyn, sorry about the late response.
I have used “Samsung 970 EVO Plus MZ-V7S25” with Premier P550 board through a PCIe-NVMe adapter.
You can flash the NVMe drive on a host PC with “ubuntu-24.04-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img” using balenaEtcher or other tool and a USB NVMe adapter then plug it into Premier P550 through a PCIe-NVMe adapter.
Please make sure that you have the latest bootchain (bootloader_ddr5_secboot.bin) installed on Premier P550’s SPI flash using the instructions outlined in “HiFive Premier P550 Image Update Procedure” (sections 2.2 or 2.3) located on HiFive™ Premier P550 - SiFive Boards.
Thanks @Raza that’s what I was hoping. I’ll give it a try and hopefully get up and running without too much drama.
Please note that the M.2 slot on the P550 contains no PCIe lanes, so it can not be used for NVMe. There is only SDIO and UART in the slot, not a full set of key E features. So even though key E SSDs exist, they will not work in this slot.
NVMe can only be connected through the “x16” (which is really x4) PCIe slot.
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You can purchase the M.2 WiFi/BT card with SDIO and UART interfaces with antennas for Premier P550 from Amazon. Please refer to Premier P550’s FAQ page (Frequently Asked Questions about HiFive Premier P550), section “Where to procure accessories for Premier P550 board”.