1TB Raspberry Pi SSD on sale now for $70
raspberrypi.com
raspberrypi.com
Power cable? Not included.
SSD adapter? Not included.
Needs a mini HDMI to HDMI cable.
Needs a cooling case (absolutely required for Pi 5).
It feels a bit like Tesla’s "gas savings" pricing deception. The Pi looks cheap on paper, but the actual usable cost is buried under "essential extras" [1].
[1] https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-5-16gb/?src=raspb...
From a purely hardware perspective, I think it's always been in that "limbo" for almost every use case anyway.
For a hobbyist even in Ye Olden Days (before there were other single board computers) you were always able to pull up Craiglist or walk to the thrift store and buy a $50 PC that vastly outperformed a Pi anyway. Underclock that PC and it could be a fanless power miser too, albeit not quite down to Pi levels. (Pretty sure I remember people clocking 900mhz P3's down to 500mhz fanless, that kind of thing. Still faster than a O.G. RPi...)
So the Pi's hardware was really only a revelation if you needed that semi-embeddable form factor, or if you wanted to do something like manage a classroom of cheap low-performance PCs without the nightmare of managing a fleet of heterogeneous junk PCs.
It was always all about the objectively awesome ecosystem of support and peripherals, and deciding whether that ecosystem mattered for you and your use case. Sometimes that ecosystem is a massive boon and sometimes it doesn't matter at all.
A raspberry pi 5 8gb CanaKit. So pi, fan, microsd, cords, power. Comes in at $160 on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Starter-Kit-PRO/dp/...
You can get any number of Intel N150 MiniPC's with RAM, SSD and power cord for $140? https://www.amazon.com/GMKtec-mini-pc-computer-n150/dp/B0CH8... Maybe less on sale. And an Intel N150 is going to score 2-3x on standard benchmarks what the RPi does. You can find older N100 based mini PC's for even less.
The pi still has its place, again, for those ultra low power use cases. But for "I just want a small computer", it's not the option. Mostly because of economies of scale. Everything in the MiniPC's is made at thousands of times more scale than the RPi. Also.... in Chinese factories for significantly less cost to start with.
Sure I could use an arduino in many cases, but the Pi running linux can be very convenient, with bash or regular python or even small unix C utilities (which I can tweak and re-compile right on the Pi!)
The Pi 5 and the RK3588 boards is when I'd get an Intel N100 miniPC instead.
It looks like the RP2040 on the X4 is connected via USB. The RP2040's bootloader mode that enables flashing emulates a mass storage device over USB to transfer firmware, so it would be confusing to not connect it via USB.
This means that your x86 program doesn’t directly control the GPIOs, it must communicate with the RP2040 over USB serial. The RP2040 must be flashed with a firmware that knows how to handle these serial commands.
It works, but it’s an extra step and timing may be an issue.
On the other hand, a Raspberry Pi Linux program can toggle GPIO pins natively simply by using the official libraries.
I mentioned the RP1 in another comment.
The only question, for me anyway, is how much value I put on that experience and whether the increased cost is worth it.
I would reconsider the choice when I have a commercial product that I have some scale of production, where a few bucks off the BOM is important.
You can connect things to the headers and experiment with it as originally intended.
In my opinion, it doesn't make sense to try to treat it like a mini desktop computer. Like you said, it's very expensive to add on all of the accessories: High power adapter, M.2 hat, SSD, special HDMI cables, and a case for cooling. By the time you're done, you've spent as much as a cheap x86 computer that would outperform it and come with none of the software quirks.
Just because you can outfit it will all of those things doesn't mean most people should. If you really want a mini computer, get a mini computer.
It does indeed make setting up a headless RPi quite convenient, although afterwards you do actually have to find the thing on your network.
By default it has the hostname "raspberrypi" and handles mDNS so SSHing to raspberrypi.local often does the trick, but could be a problem if you have more than one. You can set the hostname in the imager to deal with that.
Another common approach is to check your router's DHCP client list or connected device list. If you are lucky your router includes the hostname if the client sent one. If it only shows MAC address, IP address, and DHCP remaining lease you can look for something that just got its lease.
Personally, once I learn the Pi's MAC addresses either from my router's DHCP server or by logging on to the Pi and using "ip link show" I go to my router's DHCP settings and assign reserved IP addresses to those Mac addresses. Then whenever I re-image or boot from another drive with a different image it doesn't matter. It's going to be on the same IP.
If you just want a small, cheap computer, x86 boxes are better in every way.
But if you want something you can hook wires to, fry once in a while, and find 20 blog posts about someone doing the same, Pi still has a niche that’s hard to replicate.
All I’m saying is that Pi projects can get really expensive if you want to do anything beyond a basic install like Pi-hole and leave it as-is. Even simpler projects - say, connecting a motor or a servo require additional components like a power module or distribution board, which quickly adds up.
I got a GMKtec G5 which is about ~3"x3"x2", has an Intel N97 CPU, 12GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD (upgraded to a 2TB NVMe disk). No need to buy an additional power adapter (included, it's Type-C), HDMI adapters, or case/fan, either. I think it was about £110 with next-day shipping from Amazon.
It has remarkable performance; I tried GNOME on NixOS and it felt instantly responsive for all general purpose desktop use (web browsing, vscodium with my linting extensions, etc). The only area of my everyday workflow in which it clearly fell behind my M1 Max MacBook Pro was in Rust compilation which is obviously expected - I was just shocked how close it was for everything outside of that. This is in huge contrast to Raspberry Pis which suck to use graphically, even with the Pi 5.
It has happily been sitting on my desk running Forgejo, Mastodon, Vaultwarden, and acting as a personal storage server with that 2TB drive for the last ~6 months and I never even hear the fan. Sits at 0.1 load average, despite Mastodon with this many relays previously eating up the contabo VPS' CPU I was using quite handily.
[1] https://www.adafruit.com/product/2264 [2] https://pypi.org/project/pyftdi/ [3] https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-any-computer-wit...
As far as power cables go, I think I only ever bought one proper PSU for a Pi, the rest were all powered from various bits of discarded PSU here and there, and in one case via a 5-way usb power thing. (Heck - I think only 2 of the last 5 phones I've had came with a power supply).
SSD - definitely nice to have, but I've not used one on a pi yet.
For display cables - most of my pi's tend to be headless, and I pre-configure the network bits when I image the sd card, so I don't often use the display at all.
Cooling case has become more necessary with the 5, although a heatsink alone can cope if airflow is good enough (e.g. if there's no case, of if the top is off).
But yes, if you want to use it in a desktop replacement scenario, then the extras do add up quite a bit.
Not sure if any of the newer Pi boards can be powered with a simple splitter rather than a PoE hat, as the 2B is quite low power.
For my case it wasn't too bad, maybe $30-40 to get up and running on top of the Pi 4 cost. But I totally get what you mean, especially if one wants more capacity, active cooling, dedicated PSU, etc.
Tesla is another story. They used to sell complete cars, now they put in a touchscreen and have taken away the dashboard, the buttons, and now the turn signal and drive select stalks. It's not minimalist or cost savings, it is cheap.
Kits are available for a little more, if you are just getting started and don't want to hunt for each individual component.
Many people don't want/need all of it, and they can buy just the board without paying for stuff they don't need.
This is not a deception. Stop spreading misinformation.
https://www.ebay.com/str/evolutionecycling/Mini-Desktops/_i....
if the 'computer'-ey part of your project is a cost centre, the rpi starts to look attractive.
If so maybe it means the Pi 6 is closer than I thought. I was guessing mid next year.
Really the weak spot of the PI has always been the GPU though. It's always been a generation behind even cheap phone GPUs. I live in hope one day it'll get the upgrade it needs. I definitely think that the way they have been building infrastructure they might be developing the capability to provide something awesome, one day.
I see only two possible paths for another GPU on RPis in the future: either Broadcom drops the VideoCore GPU and switches to Mali or Adreno (which I think is unlikely), or RPi stops using Broadcom SoCs and switches to something completely different. Still unlikely, but now that they have the RP1 chip taking over most of the I/O functions, it would not be too hard for them to change and still make boards that retain compatibility with existing hats.
Still, the RPi is made at a certain pricepoint, which very likely precludes putting in a flagship SoC, so even if they change, I'm not sure it will do wonders for GPU performance.
So why should I get one from the Pi Foundation?
https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power-200MB-Compatible-SU01KG...
I'd buy the one from Raspberry just because I know they've tested it and it works well. (plus I prefer to not buy from Amazon, but that's just my personal preference)
Does the Pi Foundation issue a QVL for SD Cards? SSDs?
"You could use any other drive, but our drive has been through rigorous testing" kind of situation.
Ideally we wouldn't need this since standards exist, but time and time again somebody is bound to take a shortcut and break things. Be it Raspberry in their PCI-E implementation or the drive manufacturer skipping a few NVME functions to save few kilobytes of firmware.
Think of it as a guaranteed "trouble-free" experience if you just want to plug it in and work.
I have been boiled by these cheap SSDs once, and it was a firmware related issue too.
200USD for half-assed 4TBs of SSD storage that may or may not work depending on what you plug it into.
PS: It was a Silicon Power SSD as well, so really do watch out for that stuff.
The reason to get theirs is support or get something that's already tested and you know will work out of the box.
However, also on Amazon right now on sale is the 1 TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus [2], which is generally considered to be a higher-end drive with better performance and longevity which is currently $65.
The Silicon Power is a 2230 and the Samsung is a 2280 so if one is using the official SSD hat the Samsung won't work. The official had only supports 2230 and 2242. However there are many 3rd party hats the do handle 2280, and I've also seen a base that goes under the RPi5 instead of on top.
The 2 TB Samsung is also on sale for $120, compared to the 2 TB Silicon Power for $140.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power-200MB-Compatible-SU01KG...
I suppose if you're buying something for someone who is new to all of this, it might be worthwhile to have many things be RPi branded so if there are issues, there's only one party to worry about.
"Silicon Power has the highest failure rate of any brand we've used."
"I'm very late to this thread but I wanted to say their SSDs are garbage."
This is a white-label SSD. It's a bad deal.
It used to be positioned like an upscale microcontroller that cost a little bit more, but you could control hardware using the GPIO and you were afforded a whole linux OS where you could use higher level languages.
But then people started using it just for running fat linux applications like a PC. Then of course they started demanding more power, and so we've ended up with a bad mini-pc, rather than a platform for tinkering with hardware.
The old Pis made a lot of sense as an Arduino+++. But instead people are using them as a PC---
Raspberry Pi seem very engaged with their market and what they’re doing. They’re just not interested in making homelab media servers.
At the same time, the B model and the 500 are oriented toward a general purpose tinkerer audience and RPi even highlights PCIe on the 5's homepage as if M.2 was natively on the board instead of a FPC connector (there is a caveat further down the page).
I appreciate RPi's vision and long lead times and think it would be interesting to hear the story of how they came to the decision of FPC plus power from 40 pin as opposed to building out M.2 (which could also be used for wireless, NPU/TPU, OCuLink, etc). Maybe it had to do with what they thought they could support with that Pico peripheral interconnect? Unlike standard PC makers they aren't taking a batteries included mobo chipset.
All aboard the PCI express
This addition to Raspberry Pi allows you to connect an M.2 SSD to your Raspberry Pi, giving you speedy data transfer and super-fast boot.
The Pi has never really been aimed at the Linux-savvy power user. It’s always sucked at being a power user’s PC or as any kind of server where size and power consumption were not a primary concern.
You’ve always been able to find a used PC on eBay for a comparable price, even in the days of the Pi 1. This has never been the point of the Pi.
It was designed to be educative and versatile, and I think that still holds up today. It’s still excellent as a teaching computer for those wanting to learn Linux, or for those without access to a real PC. It’s excellent for embedded work, or prototypes, bespoke commercial solutions and hobby projects involving controls and sensors.
The best part of the Pi ecosystem is that if one dies, I can easily find a replacement and just swap out the SD.
Sometimes, strict limitations are not a bad thing. It can be a weed out course level of filtering (since classes just started up again)
> 20-30 AAA Games.
Perhaps some years ago. Now AAA games are in the range of 70-100 GB, so hardly you can now fit 10 games in it
I've done that for both of mine, combined with ~$15 256GB SSDs off of ebay, and I haven't had any trouble. It's noticeably faster, and probably a little more reliable than a microSD.