Seeed Studio has launched a new HAT for the Raspberry Pi 5 that allows makers to add a ton of high-bandwidth storage to their creations. The PCIe 3.0 to Dual M.2 HAT adds a pair of slots that can each handle up to 2TB of NVMe storage.

While we’ve seen plenty of SSD HATs for the Raspberry Pi 5 in the past, this may be the fastest to date. It’s the first that we’re aware of that supports up to 8GT/s of shared bandwidth using the Raspberry Pi’s PCIe Gen 3 x1 interface.

That’s made possible by the board’s ASMedia ASM2806 PCIe 3.0 packet switching chip. Most existing SSD HATs for the Raspberry Pi 5 use chips which are limited to PCIe 2.0 for up to 5 GT/s of shared bandwidth.

In terms of real-world performance, Seed says its new HAT supports read speeds up to 812MB/s and write speeds 701 MB/s. Both of those figures are roughly double what Seeed’s PCIe 2.0 dual SSD HAT can muster.

That speedier performance comes at a cost though: existing Raspberry Pi 5 SSD HAT boards sell for as little as $10 (or even less), but the Seeed Studio’s new PCIe 3.0 dual M.2 HAT sells for $45. 

The board has two M.2 2280 slots, and Seeed Studio recommends using SSDs from Foresee or Kioxia NVMes are recommended. That’s logical enough given they’re the OEMs producing the units that Seeed Studio sells.

It’s worth noting that the HAT won’t fit inside the official Raspberry Pi 5 case. Seeed Studio has helpfully shared a STEP file so that you can 3D print a form-fitting enclosure.

via CNX Software