256GB and 512GB
Raspberry Pi presents its own NVMe SSDs
After releasing accessories like a M.2 adapter or SD cards, Raspberry Pi is now presenting its own SSDs for the Raspberry Pi 5. The drive is available with two capacities: 256GB and 512GB.
Raspberry Pi launched a range of Raspberry Pi-branded NVMe SSDs. They are available on their own or bundled with the »M.2 HAT+« as ready-to-use SSD kits. The SSDs are supposed to get the most out of the Raspberry Pi 5.
The Raspberry Pi 5 launched almost a year ago. The users did not – as expected – get the most excited about the high increase in performance compared to the Raspberry Pi 4 but features like the power button and the PCI Express port.
Since the start users attached everything from Ethernet adapters to AI accelerators to regular PC graphics cards to the PCI Express port. Raspberry Pi offers its own M.2 HAT+ which converts from the FPC standard to the M.2 M-key format. It is also part of the AI Kit which combines it with an AI inference accelerator from Hailo.
However, the most popular use case for the PCI Express port on Raspberry Pi 5 is to attach an NVMe solid-state disk (SSD). SSDs are faster than Raspberry Pi’s own A2-class SD cards. If uncompromising performance is the goal, it is best to run Raspberry Pi OS from an SSD, and that is why Raspberry Pi releases its own SSDs.
The entry-level 256GB drive is priced at $30 on its own, or $40 as a kit. The 512GB version is priced at $45 on its own, or $55 as a kit. Both densities offer minimum 4KB random read and write performance of 40k IOPS and 70k IOPS respectively. The 256GB SSD and SSD Kit are available to buy today, while the 512GB variants are available to pre-order now for shipping by the end of November.
