BPI-R3 Mini eMMC Upgrade Project – Planning a 256 GB Upgrade

[Manivannan_Maran]

Hello everyone, I’m planning to upgrade the onboard eMMC of my Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini from the factory chip to a 256 GB Samsung eMMC.

The eMMC I’m planning to use is: Samsung KLMEG8UERM-C041

From the information I have, it offers: Capacity: 256 GB Interface: eMMC 5.1 Package: BGA153 Manufacturer: Samsung

Higher storage capacity for Ubuntu, OpenWrt, Docker, containers, VMs, and development work. My goal is to make the BPI-R3 Mini a more capable router/NAS/server while keeping the onboard storage instead of relying entirely on an external SSD.

I’m also working on improving PCIe/NVMe support for my board, so increasing the onboard eMMC capacity will provide much more space for firmware development and testing.

I’d appreciate any advice from anyone who has: Successfully replaced the original eMMC. Verified compatibility of the Samsung KLMEG8UERM-C041 with the MT7986 platform. Found any bootloader (BL2/FIP), partitioning, or hardware issues after upgrading to a larger eMMC. Any experience or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[hyf (hyf9929)]

Its original chip is an 8G eMMC, model number THGBMJG6C1LBAIL.

To replace it, I think we first need to compare their hardware power supply and software timings. If you are not familiar with this, you can try replacing it after comparing the voltage levels to see if it works.

You can find the datasheet for this chip online to view it.