Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT
Raspberry Pi is putting the finishing touches on their M.2 HAT boards for the Raspberry Pi 5. While we wait for the official forums, the community is already hard at work building their own versions. The first one was the Pineberry Pi HAT Drive, setting the groundwork for others to follow.
The British retailer Raspberry Pi, Pimoroni, was already working on their own version and it has finally reached our table. The $13 base is a beautiful slice of PCB. The simple monochrome silk-screening belies how useful this little board can be. The custom flat flex connector, with its own silk-screening to prevent incorrect connections, is a nice touch from Pimoroni.
But is this the best NVMe base for your Raspberry Pi? Should we buy a Pineberry Pi board or wait for the official Raspberry Pi board? To determine that, we need to test the board.
Pimoroni NVMe Base Specifications:
- PCIe Interface
- PCIe x1 with support for Gen 2 and Gen3
- M.2 Support – NVMe 2230, 2242, 226, and 2280
- Power via FPC
- Dimensions – 85x56mm
- Price – $13.50 ($13)
This is another classic design from Pimoroni. A clear and simple silk-screening informs us which sizes of NVMe drives we can use and confirms where we should connect the drive and the ribbon cable between the Pi 5 and the NVMe base. There are M2.5 holes that correspond to the Raspberry Pi 5’s HAT footprint and means that we can mechanically connect the two using spacers.
Installing the base is simple, but we would make the PCIe connection before attaching the spacers. Otherwise, the angle of entry for the PCIe port on the Raspberry Pi 5 will be severe and may damage the flat flexible cable. It’s also worth noting that the cable needs to be correctly aligned and firmly inserted. We lost some time with a slightly loose connection, which made us doubt that our NVMe SSD was working properly.
SSDs NVMe on the Raspberry Pi are not new, but in the past we had to use a USB 3 adapter for NVMe (or SATA). This took away a USB 3 port and limited us to the bandwidth of USB 3 and the losses involved in conversion. With dedicated PCIe on the Raspberry Pi 5, we have much faster drives and access to exceptionally cheap storage.
The Pimoroni NVMe base is an economical way to add NVMe storage to your Raspberry Pi 5. After overcoming the NVMe setup issues (present in all NVMe boards we tested), we have a reliable and unobtrusive board. It’s a tough choice between the NVMe Base and the Pineberry Pi HAT Drive. It all comes down to where you are in the world. UK Pi fans will naturally lean towards a UK-based retailer, as that means no import fees. European customers may opt for Pineberry, as it’s based in Poland.