New PCIe HAT for Raspberry Pi 5 offers two M.2 slots for SSDs or AI accelerators

The well-known company Seeed Studio has introduced a new expansion board specifically designed for the Raspberry Pi. More precisely, this PCIe 3.0 switch to dual M.2 HAT is only compatible with the Raspberry Pi 5 due to its unique PCIe connector, which is essential for high-performance SSDs and other expansion cards.

As the name already suggests, the board offers two slots for M.2 modules and supports a multitude of formats including 2230, 2242, 2260, and 2280. While these slots are primarily intended for SSD storage expansion, they can also accommodate AI accelerators such as the Hailo-8 or Hailo-8L for enhanced machine learning capabilities.

Powered by the ASM2806 chip, this Raspberry Pi 5 HAT supports PCIe 3.0 and can reach sequential read speeds of up to 822 MB/s, while writing takes place at up to 716 MB/s. Although these speeds are fairly impressive, the single-board computer’s PCIe interface remains a bottleneck when using a modern high-performance SSD, such as the Crucial P3. Despite this limitation, the expansion board can be used to seamlessly boot from a solid-state drive.

Unlike many other Raspberry Pi accessories, Seeed Studio's expansion board isn't a proper HAT since it attaches to the bottom of the Raspberry Pi 5, which means that the GPIO pins on top of the SBC remain accessible. This clever design allows stacking another expansion board on top and taking advantage of the versatile GPIO interface. However, this setup is incompatible with the official Raspberry Pi case due to the added height. Fortunately, Seeed Studio has addressed this issue by providing 3D printing blueprints for a fitting custom case.

The new HAT is already available for purchase and costs $45 USD. The add-on board ships directly from China, which means that SBC tinkerers should exercise some patience.