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Boot from NVMe

AryaOS boots from a microSD card by default. On hardware with an NVMe slot — the Waveshare PoE M.2 HAT+, other M.2 HATs, or SNS-supplied boxes — you can run AryaOS from an NVMe SSD instead, which is far more endurance-friendly for continuous field use (see Media longevity) and noticeably faster.

Booting from NVMe is a Raspberry Pi bootloader change, not something the AryaOS image does for you — the steps below are one-time, per unit.

1. Fit the drive

Seat an M.2 NVMe SSD (2230/2242/2260/2280) in the HAT. The Pi 5 auto-detects the PCIe link; no config.txt change is needed for detection. To force PCIe Gen 3 (faster, but not all HATs/SSDs are stable):

# /boot/firmware/config.txt
dtparam=pciex1_gen=3

The Waveshare PoE M.2 HAT+ runs at Gen 2 by default, which is plenty for AryaOS.

2. Put AryaOS on the NVMe

Either flash the AryaOS .img directly to the NVMe from another machine, or clone a running SD install to the NVMe on the box:

lsblk                              # confirm the NVMe is /dev/nvme0n1
# Option A — clone the running SD card to NVMe:
sudo rpi-clone nvme0n1             # if rpi-clone is available
# Option B — write a downloaded image (see the OS image backup card in Cockpit):
sudo sh -c 'xzcat /var/lib/aryaos/image/*.img.xz > /dev/nvme0n1'

findmnt / afterwards should still show the SD root until you change the boot order.

3. Set the boot order to prefer NVMe

Edit the bootloader EEPROM config and set BOOT_ORDER so the Pi tries NVMe first, then SD:

sudo rpi-eeprom-config --edit

BOOT_ORDER=0xf416

Boot-order digits are read right-to-left: 6=NVMe, 1=SD, 4=USB, f=retry. 0xf416 means NVMe → SD → USB → repeat, so a box with no NVMe still falls back to the SD card. Reboot.

4. Verify

findmnt /                          # root should now be /dev/nvme0n1p2
rpi-eeprom-config | grep BOOT_ORDER

Power headroom

NVMe adds roughly 2–4 W on the PCIe link. On a marginal supply — a 5V/3A brick, or a PoE HAT fed from plain 802.3af — adding NVMe (plus SDRs) can tip the box into a brownout. Pair NVMe boot with a proper 5V/5A (27 W) supply or a true PoE+ (802.3at) source. AryaOS surfaces under-voltage via power-health and falls back to safe mode if it crash-loops. See Hardware & requirements.

See also