Connectivity & Storage

Beyond AI inference, the Expansion Board carries two more M.2 slots. Both reach the Raspberry Pi 5 through the board's internal USB 3.0 hub and the USB Bridge cable, so neither one competes with the NPU for the PCIe path, and neither needs a custom kernel module.

• Cellular Connectivity — install a Quectel M.2 Key-B modem, switch it to QMI mode, build quectel-cm, bring up LTE data, and keep the link up across reboots, with signal, band-locking, GNSS, and failover coverage.
• NVMe Storage — fit an M.2 M-Key NVMe SSD, partition and format it, mount it through fstab, and boot from it instead of the microSD card.

For the slot wiring, keying, and power limits behind both subsystems, see the Hardware Reference.