1TB Raspberry Pi SSD Arrives For A Fast And Affordable Pi 5 Storage Boost

Raspberry Pi Foundation figured it was high time it offered its own-brand solid state drive (SSD) in a 1TB capacity, and so that's exactly what it has done. It joins existing 512GB and 256GB capacity options, all of which are offered in the diminutive M.2 2230 form factor at relatively affordable price points, though there is the added cost of an M.2 adapter that's compatible with the Raspberry Pi 5. It arrives eight months after the Raspberry Pi 5 received a 16GB memory boost.

"How much data can a terabyte store? TL;DR: Loads. For example, you can save a quarter of a million photos, 200,000 songs (my first MP3 player held just 40… it got awfully repetitive), 250 HD movies, or 20-30 AAA games. To facilitate your consumption of the aforementioned media, we decided you should have the option to purchase a 1 TB capacity SSD from us," Raspberry Pi states.

According to Raspberry Pi, its branded SSDs turbocharge performance of I/O intensive applications on the Raspberry Pi 5 (as well as other devices), and facilitate a "super-fast startup" if you boot from the SSD. That's to be expected, just as is the case with a regular PC (versus a single board computer, or SBC).

Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ adapter

From what we can glean from the product images, the drive is actually manufactured by Biwin. All three capacity options are PCIe Gen 3 models. According to the rated specs, the new 1TB model is the most performant of the bunch, with 4K random reads and writes both rated at 90,000 IOPS.

The 512GB model also boasts 90,000 IOPS for 4K random writes, while 4K random reads are cut nearly in half to 50,000 IOPS. Meanwhile, the 256GB model is rated to deliver up to 70,000 IOPS for 4K random writes and 40,000 IOPS for 4K random reads.

Official pricing breaks down as follows:

• 256GB Raspberry Pi SSD: $30
• 512GB Raspberry Pi SSD: $45
• 1TB Raspberry Pi SSD: $70