Ableconn PIUSB-M2S USB to M.2 SATA SSD Converter Stackable Board for Raspberry Pi

I ordered the mSATA version and it is exactly as i expected. The size is about the same footprint as the Pi3 model A+. There is an online wiki but there aren’t that many functions here and it’s pretty easy to figure out. I have partitioned the drive and am running 5 operating systems on the drive for various purposes. It is very slim (height-wise), but i think i can do better: I am going to unsolder the USB pins (which are very nice to have) and put in some right-angled pins to save on space. I also plan on removing the external power port to replace it with something a little different.I can address some issues other people had though:“Blocks the GPIO pins”: this board can be mounted under the pi so that the GPIO pins are still accessible. Pretty easy fix, and you can use shorter headers than provided to keep the whole setup very small. Or get one of those right-angle headers if you still want to mount on top.“USB can’t power the board”: I have tested this with both Pi3 B+ and A+ and this is untrue. I think the problem is with other people’s power supplies. Don’t use a USB charger: amps can fluctuate causing problems with the PI. Instead get a good Power Supply (like Pwr Replacement Chargers) that keeps a constant voltage/amps. I have not had to use the extra power port on the mSATA board because with 3-3.5amps (likely excessive) going into the PI, there is easily enough to run this board with the Pi USB providing both data and power.

I have a DEC vt420 terminal that I had hooked up to a raspberry pi via a USB serial cable. I could never get it to work faster than 9600 baud. In fact, often when there was a lot of text, I would get garbled characters.I had a hunch that the usb serial device was not doing flow control properly, so I bought this board. It took about 15 minutes to install, including the time to solder the pin headers to the pi.It worked perfectly. This serial board is now talking to my terminal at its fastest speed 38400, and no errors.I could not be happier. If you want serial board for your raspberry pi, this is the one for you.

Had to assemble the components from the Amazon pictures. The Ableconn web site doesn't offer anything better than the included hard-to-read paper "instructions". The unit didn't work at first. Emailed to the support team asking for advice. Haven't heard from the yet. The expected /dev/sda device wouldn't show up but something called /dev/sg0 would. After a few Google searches and various power cycles /dev/sda came up. Had to use "sudo fdisk /dev/sda" followed by " sudo mkfs -t vfat -I /dev/sda1" before I could use " sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/usb -o uid=pi,gid=pi".I am using an Adata 512GB 2280 stick and created a single partition (/dev/sda1) using fdisk. I may change that in the future. So far it has gone 24 hours of operations without a hitch.From the mechanics of it, the board fit nicely on top of my RPi 3B+. Don't care about the USB to micro-USB jumper cable but that's an issue with 90%+ of all RPi adapter boards. Maybe it is time for RPi to get rid of those four USB ports, replace them with the micro-USB version, and reclaim a lot of board space in the process.)The instructions for the external power jumper were confusing. I finally figured it out but this needs work.Hence why 4-stars, otherwise it would have been 5.Update: I received a response on the email I sent to AbleConn Support. They didn't understand the questions I asked. The response showed a picture highlighting the micro-USB connector; which was not an issue related to my problem. The also included a URL to raspberry.org showing the external storage configuration, something I had already seen before I contacted them and which didn't solve the problem. I would give them a 1/2 start for at least getting back to me.

This has a lovely A+ form factor that is sadly crippled by the cable needed to connect the board.The cable adds nearly 3" to the space needed for an A+ (and 2" for a Pi3B).The board could (and should) have been designed to use a flat USB connector bridge.

This was easy to install and set up. Currently connecting a Crucial 2TB SSD drive. Because of the drive size, I'm powering the board from an external source, not through the Pi USB.So far, everything is working great.