SBCs: It's time to ditch microSD

Are microSD cards days numbered on Raspberry Pi 5? Raspberry Pi has a new M.2 HAT for the Pi 5, but there are many others. Which one's best?
Guides and other videos I mentioned:
- Geekworm 4-drive NVMe review on Level2Jeff: • Tiny Pi NAS: It's impo...
- Explaining Computers Network Install video: • Raspberry Pi 5 Network...
- Pi PCIe database - Pi 5 HATs: pipci.jeffgeerling.com/hats
- Set PCIe Gen 3 speed on the Pi 5: www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/202...
Devices I mentioned (some links are affiliate links):
- Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+: www.raspberrypi.com/products/...
- Pineboards (many devices mentioned): pineboards.io
- Cytron MakerDisk NVMe: www.cytron.io/p-nvme-2242-b-p...
- Pimoroni NVMe BASE: shop.pimoroni.com/products/nv...
- GeeekPi N04 M.2 NVMe HAT: amzn.to/4bGWpPP
- GeeekPi N05 M.2 NVMe HAT: amzn.to/3V2enXv
- USB RIITOP NVMe to USB Docking Station: amzn.to/4beEIav
- Raspberry Pi NOOBS microSD card: amzn.to/3K3iQmu
- Geekworm X1011 4-drive NVMe board: geekworm.com/products/x1011
- Argon ONE V3 M.2 NVMe PCIe case: amzn.to/3QFLZHN
- (Let me know in the comments if I missed something!)
Support me on Patreon: / geerlingguy
Sponsor me on GitHub: github.com/sponsors/geerlingguy
Merch: redshirtjeff.com
2nd Channel: / @geerlingengineering
3rd Channel: / @level2jeff
00:00 - NVMe's time to shine
00:35 - Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+
01:49 - Alternatives have more interesting uses
02:10 - Ditch microSD
03:26 - What makes NVMe so good?
05:12 - Better performance and compatibility
06:29 - Multi-drive HATs - compromises
07:50 - Opportunities and a Pi 500?

[@octonoozle]

I only use 3.5" floppy

[@Log4Jake]

Same I own about 300 floppys they are great.

[@hankhulator5007]

I prefer 5"1/4 or even 8" floppies ;-p)

[@frogz]

@@hankhulator5007 i keep a couple 8 inch floppies, they make good padding to protect my hdds in a old floppy disk box

[@kolbyking2315]

3.5" floppy disk and 5" hard drive?

[@cirkulx]

I only use 8" IBM Internal Floppy.

[@timaidley7801]

Whenever Jeff says "Until next time, I'm Jeff Geerling", I wonder who he will become next time. So far, it's always been Jeff Geerling.

[@JeffGeerling]

So far...

[@truthdoesnotexist]

you haven't yet seen the wrath of Geff Jeerling

[@jackthompson6296]

this isn’t even his final form

[@HungarianPenguin]

Well, I think his previous form was a Jeffling. But dont quote me on that.

[@derrickjac]

Thank god.

[@gigaherz_]

Just starting the video. My take before watching: microSD card is to the Pi, what the floppy drive was to the original IBM PC. As soon as Hard Drives were available, people mostly stopped booting off the floppies, and started using them as external storage and for transferring files between computers. If I had anything newer than a Pi3B+, I would be booting off a proper SSD instead of the microSD.

[@soviut303]

The microSDs are still useful for swapping between several different operating systems if you've only got a single pi.

[@ernestgalvan9037]

RPi 3B+ can boot an SSD through a USB3-SATA adapter. It’s been a thing for some two years now.

[@Max24871]

I've said this all along and I'll continue pounding this home: Buy sdcard suitable for the job and they'll last just as long and be much cheaper. For the Raspberry Pi (or any sbc) that means only sdcards with an application rating of preferably A2, and you're golden. The performance difference to a real ssd is pretty small but if you don't need much space sdcards are much cheaper. A2 rated sdcards are much better than most people are used to, it's very much worth a try. The problem with people recommending all kitted out raspberry pi's is that once you reach the price of a cheap x86 based mini pc the pi just can't compete there

[@gigaherz_]

@@ernestgalvan9037 Has it? I thought the SoC of the rpi3 didn't allow alternate boot methods.

[@TWX1138]

Eh. When I had roommates I had my Linux box still using Loadlin to boot, no MBR on the disk, so that after I booted off floppy I'd take the floppy out and put it away. This way when I shut the computer down no one else could boot it up in a misguided attempt to use it since it would stop right after the POST.

[@christian104]

That segue to the sponsor was S+ tier.

[@LordDragon1965]

It was L-tier...L for Linus

[@Gorja239]

more than funny :D

[@senfdame528]

@@LordDragon1965 S+ for Linus (S)ebastian ;)

[@MichaelOfRohan]

I dont know how I figured segue was spelled, but that wasnt it lol

[@veli86]

@@MichaelOfRohanTIL it is not “segway”.

[@YouShisha1393]

Next Pi should have builtin m.2 header.

[@johnr3936]

This one should've.

[@Tomydirium]

I am shocked that RPi5 does not have boot option for nvme by default

[@burnte]

@@Tomydiriumyou can boot from nvme easily. There’s no so card in my pi5.

[@Tomydirium]

@@burnte you can, but you have to edit internal pi config files (eeprom config, iirc)

[@TheBroz]

I don’t agree, the price of the Pi is already getting bloated.

[@Aruneh]

"It's time to ditch microSD - for Raspberry Pi" There, fixed the title to be less clickbaity.

[@DragoNate]

*title still not updated...

[@kizurura]

It's so careless of a creator's part to say such a thing as Micro SD becomes straight up obsolete without specifying for what purpose it became obsolete. And he even hearted your comment. Is he shameless or is it just autoheart?

[@frogz]

@@kizurura shameless clickbait title, i approve because he did it somehow tastefully/shamelessly at the same time

[@nimoy007]

​@@kizurura Have you watched any of Jeff's videos before? It is definitely neither of those reasons.

[@brodriguez11000]

Need MicroSD for sneaking out government secrets. NVMe too big.

[@Supermunch2000]

The troll at 2:17 got me SO GOOD! 😆🤣😆🤣😆

[@hiero.]

I flinched the way I do in an LTT video

[@sumimasensorrygomen]

definitely got me rushing up reaching for the mouse to skkip

[@user-vd8oy1wh4r]

@@sumimasensorrygomen SponsorBlock to the rescue!

[@RafaGmod]

bro i almost fell from my chair HAHAHHAHA

[@john13211]

@@hiero. yea he said it with the same vibes of ltt

[@jfolz]

Imagine a world where instead of 6 displays and cameras, the Pi5 had an nvme slot and didn't require active cooling.

[@liamely802]

It doesn't require active cooling. It will not harm the board to run without it, and will still outperform the pi4b iirc.

[@balsalmalberto8086]

Imagine if the Pi5 went back to their $35 starting price

[@ChristopherHailey]

The Pi Zero 2 pretty much covers what the original Pi could do, a 1gb version would close the gap. The 5 is so much more than the original SBC but I think you're right, there is still a desire for low end versions.

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

imagine a world where Rpi made all of their own chips instead of Broadcomm's subpar SOCs

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Imagine a world where I don’t need a Pi anymore. Oh yea, 2020. I’m Pi-less now.

[@roblatour3511]

I really like the way you referenced Explaining Computers; it shows real maturity to point people to other youtubers for related info

[@piorewrzece]

Segway to our sponsor joke WAS GOLD ♥

[@christophmuller3511]

I am still angry that the raspberry pi foundation didn’t place an M.2 slot on the bottom of the pi, this flat flex solution is finicky.

[@JeffGeerling]

Definitely finicky. I do wonder if they'll find a way to put M.2 directly on a future Pi 6.

[@nikobellic570]

M.2 ports consume too much power for the pi's compact power design, I've heard

[@mlindholm]

@@nikobellic570so how do these M.2 hats work...don't they pull power from the PCIe interface or GPIO pins? Some may take an auxiliary power connection, but not all would.

[@christophmuller3511]

@@nikobellic570 the port is just a connector routing PCIe to the board. If power would be the issue all the M.2 hats would not work either.

[@MeTube3]

Put $10 on the price. I would pay it.

[@peterblaikie3744]

Jeff I liked how to mentioned Chris at Explaining Computers. Between the both of you I learned enough to get my PI4 running and enjoy all the tips and advice as well as the product reviews.

[@JeffGeerling]

Love his videos, it's a Sunday tradition!

[@MarkEmeryPhotography]

For older Pi, I’ve used AllNet Rock Pi 4 eMMC to USD Board.

[@JeffGeerling]

USB I presume ;) It would be great if I could find a board that would convert my old eMMC drives to US Dollars though!

[@nicholas4839]

​@@JeffGeerlingI would be rich if I could a board like that too

[@nimoy007]

​​@@JeffGeerling Yeah, but the eMMC conversion rate is really low right now, so I'm invested in flash cards right now :P Also, OP, don't edit your comment, or you'll lose the context for these comments as well as Jeff's "heart."

[@justme5384]

​@@JeffGeerlinghe's probably meaning eMMC to uSD

[@CoruscationsOfIneptitude]

​@@JeffGeerling Hello! Thank you for the videos andI hope that you are well recovered. Are NVME drives faster than GPU RAM? Would there be any benefit to such a drive as a sort of buffer for video frames, a way to store 60 frames or so, so that then the 'buffer' and GPU dump frames hopefully smoothing framerates. Am I off on a silly tangent. Ta!

[@stephenvalente3296]

First reaction was that I found it odd when the email from Pi Hut and Pimoroni arrived this morning that the Pi Foundation had ignored the 2280 format drives in favour of the more expensive 2230 & 2242 sizes. Compact yes, but generally harder to find over the established 2280 format drives from Samsung, WD, etc.

[@JeffGeerling]

They're a little more rare, but I think more will come to market since the size is seeing a comeback with portable gaming handhelds and SBCs. I've already seen the launch of four new 2242 size boards, and about 8 2230, in the past two years.

[@stephenvalente3296]

@@JeffGeerling About £70-£80 in the UK currently for a 1Tb model (2230), so a slight premium. Just couldn't fathom why they left out the 2280 option initially. Still going to order one of course!

[@AudreyRobinel]

I had the same though as you did. I feel like an issue with raspis now is that they really want to keep compatibility between all the hats and stuff. I wouldn't mind if they changed the form factor, broke compatibility but had a 2280 nvme slot on the bottom, perhaps another format for the gpios, normal sized hdmi ports, and all ports on one side. Or I don't know, release a model C with all of these. Now the issue is with how cheap n100 computers are getting, compared to the price hike of the pis. Justifed Price hike for sure, but renders it less competitive. If I need gpio stuff, I am almost always better with a pi Pico, and have it either communicate via usb with the host computer, or via WiFi or Bluetooth. The one pi that is still in a very unique spot is the zero line. Hard to find anything else that runs Linux that well, for so cheap, low power, and with gpio.

[@Tweak42]

If history serves, it will be similar to how full sized SD cards were gradually supplanted by microSD. Manufactures are already ramping up offerings for handheld gaming devices like the Steamdeck.

[@HVDynamo]

@@AudreyRobinel Honestly, I've kind of thought they should branch into two versions of the Pi, Keep the current standard the same (aside from going back to one large HDMI instead of two, and bring back the analog audio jack). Then they could release a Pi Pro or something of the like that's maybe twice the size or a little bit larger to accommodate the additional ports that may be needed. They kind of did the opposite with the Pi Zero, it would be nice to see them take it a little the other direction without going too far. That larger one could include more/faster PCI-E lanes with a built in M.2, one full size HDMI and one mini so you still have the option to use two displays, but aren't eating up a ton of room with the second connector while maintaining more standard connection for the first. For the Pro, I'd target $100 to $150 for the board. It's a bit more, but also more capable.

[@i_Kruti]

2:17 That LINUS style sponsor segway was....!!😂🤣

[@award_]

jeff, the sponsor segue troll was hilarious dude!

[@PrograError]

well... he ain't no LTT for sure...

[@jackielinde7568]

I clicked on this video expecting Jeff to argue NVMe as a replacement for MicroSD's as a portable drive device. Sadly, that was not the case. Still a very informative video.

[@henryptung]

I mean, arguing about prices per terabyte already misses the point when it comes to Pi boot drives. Most Pis out there aren't using their system for chunky storage, and the advantage of MicroSD isn't cost-per-GB efficiency - it's just cost. You can get 5 64GB MicroSDs for $15, and for people with a ton of embedded Pis and Pi Zeros around the place, that's a strong value proposition. Obviously if you're using your Pi for performance sensitive and storage sensitive work, yeah a MicroSD isn't going to cut it. But if you just want a boot drive to run a daemon or two from RAM, NVMe requires more hardware, more expensive drives, for performance you won't use.

[@Catzzye]

Will the shirt you're wearing be available in that colour on the merch store? :( I really like that orangey gradient, thanks!

[@JeffGeerling]

Yes, very soon! I am working on rebuilding the merch store (with a new way better T-shirt printing company), and hope to have it going by the end of this month. The colors and printing on the shirts is sooo much better now.

[@dwylhq874]

Perfect timing! We were starting to research this for Pi5 Home Assistant 😍

[@coin777]

SBC doesn't fit into my camera...

[@jameswarnock5655]

5:44 I second WD drives not working on the Pi. My first attempt to get my Home Assistant Yellow running on NVMe was nothing but trouble with my WD drive. I bought a Samsung and it worked first try.

[@psychopath_syd]

YAAY! Explaining Computer mentioned

[@LordDragon1965]

References to two of my non-Jeff favorites. Chris and Linus.

[@psychopath_syd]

@@LordDragon1965 if you're referencing to LTT, not following them after their controversy with Gaming Nexus. Jeff, Chris and Explaining Computers seem much more down-to-earth.

[@allenrogers5415]

Great video! Thinking of creating a travel router and a simple small raid drive for storage. I like to tinker.

[@teknoman117]

6:43 - there is a low lane count asmedia PCIe gen 3 switch - the ASM2806A. It's the same switch used in the Asus FLASHTOR 6&12 m.2 disk NAS units, along with a number of multi-controller USB and SATA cards. They do use quite a bit more power than gen 2 switches. Most implementations I've seen require heatsinks. I also imagine they cost quite a bit more.

[@JohnDunne001]

I can't beleive I'm yet to buy a raspberry pi 5 - got a ton of CM4's and 4b's.... I need an excuse to buy one and not be wasteful!!

[@JeffGeerling]

Haha well good on you for not contributing to ewaste by buying something you don't have a need for! CM4 is still a great little machine. And I run a couple 4B's where I need a little speed but not something crazy like Pi 5.

[@teslamax5529]

Me too. But I have 4x CM4, 2x Pi 4, and way too much of other things. 😅

[@JohnDunne001]

@@JeffGeerling Same. I run my gitea server, OMV NAS, Pi Hole and Home assistant on seperate CM4's and a couple of Retro emulators. They run great but I might get a Pi 5 for a 4 player stand up cabinet I'm planning on building, with a 42 inch TV. A Pi 5 might lend it's self nicely for that project!

[@JohnDunne001]

@@teslamax5529 I have a huge list of yet to be started projects :D Too many ideas, not enough time. But the Pi 4's were bought for them non the less! I've learnt the lesson!

[@BradClarke]

I bought 4GB and 8GB Pi5s to use with the Pimoroni NVME base. I have a couple Pi4b that run 24x7 (off of Samsung bar USB sticks), but have at least 4 more sitting around unused. Need to put them to work somehow.

[@evanbarnes9984]

The first shot of RPi's own M.2 hat at about 0:47 was so perfect! The image showed that the hat was launched today and already sold out. That's so on brand for Raspberry Pi. "We made this cool new thing! Unfortunately it's vaporware for all but our industrial clients."

[@shadowownz3137]

@Jeff i pretty much enjoy your videos, especially at work, i find them very relaxing! Any thoughts on the new HAT+ official NVMe m.2 from the Pi foundation? I was expecting a bottom one to be release as well, perhaps with 2280 support, do you have any news on that matter?

[@AJB2K3]

I'm hoping for an RP5 updated version of the Argon EON. I do like the triangular shape of it.

[@GeneralZimmer]

I almost mistook this video for an LTT video

[@AlanTwoRings]

No need to be so rude.

[@cenotaph300]

Same here. "A segue to our sponsor..." Not really, but it was a funny jab at LTT!😂

[@metroguevania]

Nah. The name and thumbnail weren't clickbait enough

[@the-floofy-mew]

i still nab micro sd's as 20 bucks for a 256 is good price. yet i will also still use hdd for game storage as cheep space while failing isn't bad.

[@JeffGeerling]

Not time to ditch your hard drives! :) If you just need some raw storage space, microSD still has its place, it's just not as good for a primary boot drive for an SBC these days!

[@IanTheWoodchuck]

I'm a big fan of the ArgonONE cases and accessories. The new V3 with NVMe add-on is just such a clean and professional look, and the machined aluminium-alloy direct contact case siphons off heat better than any case I've used that wasn't a tower-cooler design. Plus once it's bundled up, you can still easily access the SSD slot through a heatsink plate on the bottom. My only complaint is that it took just over a month to arrive directly from China because US supplies were unavailable.

[@gregspeakman9337]

Nice vid Jeff. I have been using the Pimoroni NVMe base. It works well. Like you mentioned, getting a case is problematic.

[@energyideas]

Thanks. Agree, Pi 500 w/NVME will be sweet desktop replacement. Dual NVME Hat could support an AI solution like Coral. Hope bottleneck chip for duals is solved above 2x.

[@michaelmu6765]

I haven't got a chance to watch the full video, but what's your thought on sd express, if it ever becomes a viable product?

[@JeffGeerling]

It would be very welcome; microSD cards still have a place, and I welcome any and all improvements to speed / reliability :) microSD is still great for places where it's needed-the smallest 'edge' device builds, drones, tiny cameras, etc.

[@Kerbtree]

If they don’t go to Express, they could at least fit an SD slot that did uhs 2, preferably 3.

[@simpletongeek]

My current setup is Raspi5 in KKSB Official Display Case to make a portable (somewhat thick) pad. Whatever hat in there, must be compatible with the official metal fan, and still fit in the case. Honestly, 300 MBps isn't bad at all. It only comes into question during large data transfer, such as video processing. It's good enough for everything else. ITMT, I have 8 GB RAM + 1 TB microSD. I can set up RAM Disk if I want faster bandwidth. That's good enough for me for now. Although that M2 setup is good for Raspi 500, for sure!

[@brucelytle1144]

I recently got a McUzone MPS2280 POE Nvme board with a Samsung 990EVO memory board. Liking it!

[@JTCF]

Apparently I live in a weird world where non-raspberry accessories and SBCs have much better availability and affordability.

[@ChristopherHailey]

There are lots of different use cases and now we have lots of SBC and minipc options so the Pi does not have to be the only solution for every case. That's what's really opening up the tiny computer world, this reminds me of when microprocessors started coming out in the 70s

[@coronelkittycannon]

The only reason I'm planning on buying a R Pi 5 is the composite video output for a crt build. After that, who knows? Maybe it's time to say goodbye.

[@tin2001]

I couldn't buy a Pi last time I needed one - unavailable in Australia at the time. Now they're just ridiculously expensive for their capabilities. So basically now I just use recycled desktop PCs for anything that needs a "full" OS, and ESP8266 or ESP32 for everything else.

[@jamesh9756]

@@tin2001 The Pi 5 is $5 more for the same RAM as the Pi4. That doesn't seem a particularly large price hike for 2.5x the performance.

[@ChristopherHailey]

@@tin2001 The Pi was never intended to be another desktop, if that's what you want then you want a desktop computer, whether it's a laptop, tower, or minipc.

[@hp4985]

What if manufacturers make ssd slots like SD card slots with the spring thing and the easy access.

[@garrettrinquest1605]

I thought the same thing watching this!

[@aquaponieee]

i have a 10 year 8GB microSD card that has traveled with me for generations of phones, and it vaults a lot of memories. it wouldn't feel the same if it was all on the cloud...

[@smika710]

I use the bottom mount pineboard. I have the CannaKit Aluminum case. I put two screws into the hat, and two screws into the case. Added heat sync's to the small chips on the board. And I just 3d printed a tray with holes for the pins, and airflow cutouts that pressure fits the bottom of the aluminum case. It looks good

[@NormanLyon]

SD card reliability is the biggest reason I've stopped using SBCs, even though it's simplicity was originally a plus (even at expense of performance). NVMe might fix the shortcoming, but by the time I factor SSD into the cost of an SBC/PC/container, I haven't had SBC come out on top in a long time.

[@JeffGeerling]

Depends on the use case but mini PCs have come a long way for the money!

[@JTCF]

sd card for the "boot drive", nvme for work storage. That's the config I'm going with.

[@JeffGeerling]

Definitely a good option! I'm also thinking of trying out one of the multi-drive boards with one NVMe for boot (smaller drive), and one for storage (more capacity). It won't be blazing fast, but plenty fast for USB file copies, network file copies...

[@ChristopherHailey]

We have large servers that do the initial boot off an SD but that then does the OS boot off a "real" disk

[@JorneDeSmedt]

What kind of pi setup would you recommend for running a webservice/gpio scheduler in a closed, waterproof case? I'm a bit worried about a pi 4/5 overheating, but I'm not sure a zero 2 W would have enough ram (although maybe that's not even an issue).

[@JeffGeerling]

Zero 2W should be good for that (or even a Pico W if you can program it with MicroPython!). Unless you need a lot of compute, 512 MB of RAM is a lot.

[@Quarky_]

Your closing note is what I have been hoping ever since the Pi 5 was released :)

[@jankington216]

Yeah stop using SD cards to run an OS, they aren't meant tor that

[@afewspokesloose2699]

eMMC has entered the chat

[@URackADisciprine]

I wish the Intel Optane M10 16GB NVME SSD's were compatible with RPi. Only a few bucks each and they would be perfect for so many of my applications.

[@JeffGeerling]

Don't need much space, but want wicked-fast IOPS? Yes :D

[@wilfredklein]

@@JeffGeerling slight problem as intel seems to have killed the whole optane project, so not going to happen unfortunatly

[@TheStarman2021]

Do Raspberry PI hats have m.2 slots that handle cycling via unplugging and plugging better than standard m2 slots on other boards and machines?

[@marklowry4431]

Great video! Is there anywhere to get the better ribbon cables? I have a pi hat with a cheap one, and I'd like to upgrade it.

[@JeffGeerling]

I know Pineboards sells a little pack. Shipping to US is a little much right now.

[@marklowry4431]

@@JeffGeerling Thank you! I'll check it out :)

[@Jorge.ALXNDR]

don't you get tired of being so productive?

[@omegatotal]

Nice Segue !

[@JeffGeerling]

...To the comments!

[@omegatotal]

@@JeffGeerling

[@ernestgalvan9037]

RPi5 case with NVMe adapter on bottom. Geekworm Metal Case P580 Geekworm Bottom NVMe x1002

[@usertempeuqwer7576]

Yo Jeff, enjoying youe vidwos so far, i got three pi 5 laying around with some poe hat modules, any profitable suggestions what to build with them ?

[@stormbringer228_]

2:55 The heck are you doin there Jeff ;-;

[@JeffGeerling]

haha just a little redneck debugging, using the antistatic bag as an insulator

[@DavidHieber]

Classy hat-tip to Linus, but the lack of a segue is nice. Enjoy your videos, and your Engineering channel is great!

[@JohnADoe-pg1qk]

My fingers were jumping to the keyboard to skip the sponsor. ??

[@Santor-]

What is the most compact NVME adapter for the Pi Zero 2w? Dual for mirroring preferably.

[@Danielddiniz]

You trolling us about a Segway to a non existent sponsor made me LOL 😂

[@cheweh842]

microSDs might deserve a closer look--that is, a video review of industrial microSD cards. Ignore no-name and non-industrial cards, excepting UHS-III which I don't think has industrial cards, but does have better speeds.

[@JeffGeerling]

I have a collection of about 6 different industrial microSD drives now. I want to figure out a good test that will write through them hundreds of times and do a long-term review (like leave them all going for a month or three).

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

Indeed, that was my first thought as well. The really good microSD cards are really darn tiny for the capacity and should still be reasonably fast and durable. So I don't think its a clear cut as Jeff's opening makes it seem, those NVME drives are comparatively huge, consume more power, take up the PCIe lanes and that will matter for many folks using their SBC in their projects..

[@cheweh842]

@@JeffGeerling I've got a hunch that unexpected power disconnect during writes is the real test

[@ilovemonkeyos]

"It's a good time to get rid of your MicroSD card." Me staring at my Nintendo Switch: "The Council has spoken.... I'm sorry."

[@JeffGeerling]

Haha, time for a Steam Deck!

[@MrNeocortex]

Do any of these HATs work with SATA M.2 drives? I've got a couple that I'm not sure using at the moment.

[@JeffGeerling]

Good question! Unfortunately no, I haven't seen a Pi 5 HAT yet that works with M.2 SATA drives; since that requires the addition of a SATA controller, I don't think any vendors have considered it, since there are only a few of us hanging on to SATA M.2 drives. They seemed to never catch on much :(

[@MrNeocortex]

@@JeffGeerling I can understand not supporting them. I just have a couple because they were cheap at the time and I was more interested in the capacity than the speed.

[@RWBHere]

'Until next time, I'm Jeff Geerling.' 🤔 Who will you be, next time? 😉 Thanks for the video.

[@Digital_Notions]

Completely agree that NVMe M.2 is the way forward. However, anything over 2TB requires some hoops to jump through to get it to boot due to the MBR limitations in the default Raspberry Pi boot images.

[@JeffGeerling]

Yeah; that's some thing a few of us are starting to run into when booting with more expensive/exotic NVMe storage. Even some larger SATA drives plugged in via USB!

[@armisis]

My piromi duo is working great to boot from in slot a and the NPU on slot B. It's brilliant I've set it or v3 mode and got a good speed bump too. Didn't find any of it buggy.

[@engineer9975]

I love the shots at LTT Segways to our sponsors lol

[@aaronchamberlain4698]

I realllllly need RPi foundation to announce their PoE hat. I still have that 1U 3D printed rack and I don’t know what my final load out needs to be. Will it fit PoE and NVMe? Do I need to redesign and 3D print the trays? The questions continue.

[@JeffGeerling]

Yes, want to see their solution!

[@gashery]

Was srsly reaching for the mouse at that segue to our... Well played sir, very well played.

[@Dante-420]

What a coincidence! I was just looking into a low-stakes backup (for data I don't care about) and thought about using a pi zero-like device with an sd card, but decided on a cm4 board with an nvme slot instead! I think I'll still get an SD card for some redundancy though (I don't need fast writes, or reads for that matter)

[@samozni]

I don't know much about programming, but I've noticed as I run higher level emulators for games, like the 3DS, PS Vita, or Switch, I run into lag. Would it make the emulator faster and more usable to have a separate dedicated processor that housed the emulator and interacted with my computer's main OS (Windows 10)?

[@absurdbird3556]

Also, a 128gb MicroSD costs the same as a 128GB SSD (around £15), which via SATA or USB blows SD out of the water, doesn't burn out as quickly and can be booted from easily (and automatically since Pi 4B).

[@Neslekkim]

I couldn't see the pineboard hatdrive ai, in your list, that is, the version that seems to be able to have coral and an nvme drive, what are your thoughts on that one?

[@JeffGeerling]

It's a neat board, I have one but have yet to test it!

[@brucehanson4147]

Here I thought I was really killin it with a SATA and a USB3 adapter! Waiting to see if we get a cm5 and what kind of motherboards would be available for that!

[@daanmageddon]

LOL @ those "impedance matched traces"; i might become an old geek, but maybe others remember the "IDE 40 cable" warning your bios might throw back during the time when IDE access became UDMA/66? Not using the right cable didn't allow the new higher transfer rates. The extra connections were just grounded lines between the datalines to prevent crosstalk, a true problem with IDE because the signal is sent in parallel. Amazing how much data we can send over just a couple pairs of wires these days, but it seems there are some old familiar limitations hehe.

[@JeffGeerling]

As always what's old is new! Like my Dad does RF engineering, and a lot of the problems RF engineers deal with are similar to PCB trace issues, because it's all magnets and photons and voodoo magic with electrons, anyway :D

[@RichardEricCollins]

Would a pcie 3 to sata be a reasonable option? I would like a 6 sata port board. But only if it's sensible. I want to make my own 6 bay nas with good idle power draw.

[@JeffGeerling]

Yes! Check out my video on the 'Ultimate Pi 5 NAS' using Radxa's Penta SATA HAT. It has 5 instead of 6 drives... but you could also find a way to hack in an HBA for more drives if you need to.

[@user-py6kv2cd3o]

What screws did you use for the bottom of the official case? The supplied screws that came with the official HAT are too short.

[@JeffGeerling]

I just left it hanging in the bottom-didn't put any screws in through the bottom, it's not quite as secure in there but I think Raspberry Pi might also start including longer screws for screwing through the case bottom.

[@hadron2]

I was able to keep using the case fan with an NVME hat by leaving it loose between the hat and the board. temps are still good lol.

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, if it works it works!

[@hadron2]

@@JeffGeerling Now that's a mantra for success!

[@ChoppedWheat]

Anyone know if the new hat works with the drives with Phison controllers that some of the first 3rd party boards didn't work with.

[@AmyGrrl78]

I really hope when the Raspberry Pi 6 comes out they just include an NVMe slot on the bottom of the board. While still keeping that PCIe connector for expansion.

[@Genesis8934]

(~) 2:14 I had to go back and double check but I thought I heard a "B" instead of "D" for "how can we Ditch these pesky microsd cards" and was like, whoa! lol 2:18 I love the segue to your sponsor! ;) I wonder if future Pi's will come with a 2230 or similar SFF M.2 drive on the main board? Though maybe they need to get away from the "credit card-sized board" form factor and slightly increase board size. And if the main concern is fitting it into a case... well AFAIK, the cases need to be updated anyway for each raspberry pi version already! (~) 8:27 honestly, I really like your database you've got. I've used and referenced it a few times and found it really useful. It's kinda what I hope LTT Labs turns into rather than joining the blog-o-sphere (atm, I think their site is still just a blog).

[@uss-dh7909]

I was wondering if this was going to be a thing that would catch on... About five years ago now I purchased my first rspi and put pihole on it. Worked great for a couple months, then didn't. After some investigation, ended up having to rebuild everything from zero, and it happened again a few months later. Put it away for the summer and tried again when school started, and it did it again. Determined the SD cards were the issue and ended up building a trueNAS box with pihole in the background, no issues, happy.

[@sebastien79a]

Pimoroni NVMe *dual* slot option says it won't boot due to PCIe switch on there. Would be good to have a solution as you talked about :)

[@JeffGeerling]

Good point! That product description was written a couple months ago-but Raspberry Pi firmware now allows boot through the switch, so it should work now!

[@sebastien79a]

@@JeffGeerling Awesome. I have a couple of Pi5s built to test so will check out :)

[@jensschroder8214]

I have a Geekworm X1003 PCIe to M.2 HAT and a Samsung m.2 PM991 NVMe. Size 2242 This fits on the official Pi5 cooler in the official PI5 case. The only disadvantage is that the voltage is supplied via six pins of the I/O connection. The SD card read 80 Mbits and the SSD read is over 800 Mbits with PCIe Gen 3.

[@schalkpretorius]

Cool idea to play with is to see how many HDDs you can connect to one Pi5 using those m.2 to SATA adaptors. If it's even possible that would be a great for small media servers.

[@danieladelodun9547]

1:10 I wish you released this video 2 days ago!! Bought a 22pin 0.5 FFC to connect a Pi Zero to an Arducam camera with a ‘micro’/zero sized camera connector. Wasn’t a pi branded cable just a random FFC… Didn’t think to check this!

[@o0shad0oo]

I switched to Orange Pi 5 for my display machines, before the RPi5 was released, and I'm fond of them. Takes NVMe drives without needing a hat.

[@Warlock_UK]

Just ordered the Pimoroni one as I have a full size nvme drive laying around; it's too slow for putting in a full computer but for the PI it'll hit max speed.

[@rogerlevasseur397]

Been using a Pi 3 with a 512G microSD (in a USB port) as my in-home webserver. Won't name the brand but its supposed to be a good brand. After 18 months I started detecting checksum errors (all the contents are indexed with a checksum). I look forward to getting a Pi 5 and outfitting it with an M.2 to hold that content, and be useful for other activities, such as backup/NAS activity, either from the M.2, or a USB disk drive.

[@RickRolling-tc7vb]

Thanks Jeff, it just keeps getting better. I do love my shitty little computers. Hope you're keeping well and your studio is keeping you amused - on the quality of the output it seems to be doing a decent job.

[@ElliottVeares]

So what am I going to use for my GoPro's?

[@AbuSoneina]

you missed an important detail, which is most nvme drives have power loss protection (e.g supercap) vs sdcard which does not. I tend to yank power to my pi alot and always have to fsck the sdcard to repair the filesystem. Not so with nvme.

[@chaachee]

It's interesting to me how many posts I've seen as having "tested NVMe SSDs" but no one seems to be experiencing the constant hangs that I get when my Pi 5 4GB and NVMe SSD. I've tested different NVMe boards, different M.2 SSD drives, different setting parameters, and even had the vendor replace my Pi 5 board. Still, can't use Firefox more than 30 mins without experiencing a freeze that seems to originate at the storage (and because it's storage-related, it's unable to log anything to disk when it happens). Maybe constant reads/writes works in these tests but sporadic IO freezes for me. 🥶

[@iam.jasonhoward]

Since USB boot became an option, I've used micro SD cards less. For the Pi 5, I'm only using SSDs. As Pis get new hardware features, I'm curious how the Pi Foundation and similar organizations will incorporate hardware education into their programming. It's a great time to be a Pi enthusiast.

[@allenellisdewitt]

0:05 TWENTY? I had no idea there'd be so many already!

[@annaarthur724]

Hey Jeff. Thx for your video but, for me, it's 12 hours to late, i ordered a pi5 together with a Pimoroni NVMe Base Duo this morning. I had the intention to boot from it instead of the micro sd card. Too bad, however... I will use it now for storage and for the public_html directory of the apache webserver.

[@JeffGeerling]

It will work! Just make sure to update the firmware to the latest. If you have any issues, please file something on the Pi Forums, because the Pi engineers seem to be looking into it now and hopefully will fully support that use case!

[@RonLaws]

The root filesystem suddenly going readonly with no indication to the OS until it runs out of kernel disk cache is my favorite SDCard failure mode. I still use the SDCard for the UEFI Bios for the Pi4 so it can boot more generic ARM OS''s from a USB SSD, At least this way i can use the cheapest, smallest SD Card and not worry since it's more of a write once read many affair and is pretty much inactive after boot, so no worry about wearing it out.

[@JeffGeerling]

Yeah failure modes for microSD are no fun :(

[@talkashie]

My issues with my Pi were always SD card corruption. I gave up on the platform after never getting the storage to be stable. This was around the Pi 2B days though, so maybe it's time to get back into this. I just wish they weren't so expensive now :(

[@kelvinnkat]

I've been curious, do you think it's plausible that when the Pi 6 comes out, the Pi 5, or at least its cheapest model, will be returned to the traditional $35 price point? I wouldn't mind the higher price points so much if they at least sell previous models at $35.

[@AA0Z]

I really need to replace the SD cards down at the ham radio contest station that run Node Red with NVMe's. We have two. One to control the station remotely via a streamdeck and another one that is a large serial to ethernet converter that runs ser2net. I guess I should look at Pineboard and see what my next steps are to swap it out. I have plenty of backups as Node Red backs everything up in a JSON file, so restoring is quick and easy. I'll tackle this when I get back from Hamvention next week. 73 Kyle AA0Z

[@JeffGeerling]

Good luck! And I will hopefully be hearing you on the radio soon... I finally have a couple SDRs set up at the new office, though need to work on antennas quite a bit, as I'm right in the middle of two towers and it's hard to get things through the massive power from the FMs around me.

[@RinoaL]

I really don't like formats that are considerably smaller than the tool you pick them up with, your hand.

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh... I can remember so many times trying to pick one up off the desk... eventually sliding it off the side of the desk into my hand (or missing my hand then doing it all over on the floor!).

[@StarFox1988]

that "sponsor segue" was hilarious🤣 - but with all the options, it's hard to chose one that I like the most. it'll greatly depend on what I'm wanting to do. HOWEVER, this opened the door wide open for Windows on ARM - I had a ""decent"" experinece with it using a USB to NVME adapter on a 4 with 8GB of RAM but having an NVME on a 5? that little machine will probably do much better.

[@kosodrzewinka]

What about high-grade USB drives? I like the look of a Pi with a sleek USB much more and the performace is more than enough for me, but I'm not sure about long-term endurance...

[@DrYak]

Gen3 shouldn't cost excessively too much. Currently on aliexpress one can find full-size PCIe cards based around the ASM2812 chip for less than 50 bucks. A Pi hat would be roughly the same design, but with the RPi's FPC connector instead of the standard card edge connector, and some solution to manage the PCIe Gen3 switch chip's higher temperature.

[@JeffGeerling]

Hopefully a few cheap switch chips will roll out on the market soon! I've heard good things about a couple ASMedia chips that do Gen 3.