Raspberry Pi Now Sells Its Own SSDs

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is releasing a new line of Raspberry Pi-branded NVMe SSDs. If you don't already have an SSD for your Pi, it could be a big performance boost.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is releasing these SSDs both individually and as part of ready-to-use SSD Kits, which bundle the drives with the Raspberry Pi's M.2 HAT+. The company said that users seem to be more interested in features like the power button and PCI Express port over the performance boost that Raspberry Pi 5 has brought. It makes sense because the PCI Express lets users connect a variety of devices, including Ethernet adapters, AI accelerators, and even PC graphics cards.

While many third-party adapters convert the Raspberry Pi's FPC standard to the standard M.2 M-key format, the Raspberry Pi Foundation offers its own M.2 HAT+ at a low cost. Additionally, the foundation has released an AI Kit, which combines the M.2 HAT+ with an AI inference accelerator from Hailo; it is one of the bundles buyers can pick.

Raspberry Pi

The company also stated that one of the most popular uses for the PCI Express port is to attach an NVMe SSD. These drives offer significant speed advantages over the Raspberry Pi's branded A2-class SD cards, however, it's normally a good idea to use the branded SSDs, as they're tested to work together well. Overall, running Raspberry Pi OS from an SSD is great for improving system responsiveness.

The new Raspberry Pi SSDs are available in two capacities: 256GB and 512GB. The entry-level 256GB drive is priced at $30 individually or $40 as a kit, while the 512GB option is priced at $45 individually or $55 as a kit. Both capacities have a minimum 4KB random read and write performance of 40k IOPS and 70k IOPS, respectively.

You can buy the 256GB SSD and SSD kit now from Raspberry Pi's authorized retailers. The 512GB variants are available for pre-order, with shipments expected by the end of November.

Source: Raspberry Pi