The Raspberry Pi 5 is one of the best SBCs you can buy in 2024. The board is powerful, affordable, and offers plenty of versatility thanks to its ample expansion ports, making it the perfect starting point for any project that you might think of. Of course, you can always make the experience better with expansion boards, and now, Raspberry Pi has released its M.2 HAT+, which will make it easier to connect M.2 components, like an NVMe SSD to the Pi 5.

Those that have been keeping up with Pi 5 news will know that the Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ was first shown off in prototype form with the launch of the Pi 5 back in September. After some extensive testing, the brand is now ready to make this available to purchase, and will come in at a relatively affordable price of just $12.

A great way to expand the Raspberry Pi 5

It will offer pretty good transfer speeds, with the company stating on its website that it can reach up to 500 MB/s. That means you won't need to splurge on one of the best SSDs out there to get the most out of the adapter. As you can see from the image, this adapter board is extremely compact and fits snug with the Pi 5 to create a cohesive looking piece of hardware.

In addition to testing the board itself, the brand also tested a wide variety of NVMe drives to ensure that it would work with its new product without any issues. The company states that it worked with one NVMe brand to make fixes where possible to ensure that things would work without any tampering with the SSD or board itself.

Now, if your Pi 5 is up to date with the latest firmware, you should just be able to plug in the new board and have an SSD become the primary boot source. For the most part, this is just another great accessory for the Pi 5 that's really going to improve the experience for some users. You can now pick it up from participating vendors for just $12.