No third-party HATs or SSDs needed.
The thing that surprised me the most about Raspberry Pi 5 when it launched in 2023 was that it supports PCIe drives. Naturally, the first thing that came to my mind upon learning this was the possibility of turning it into a veritable desktop PC capable of gaming.
Unfortunately, there were no official Raspberry Pi PCIe SSD solutions upon release, and while the company eventually released its own M.2 HAT+ (HAT meaning Hardware Attached on Top, and not, like, an actual hat) to allow for SSD connectivity, you still had to go third-party for the SSD. Now, however, Raspberry Pi Ltd has announced (via Tom’s Hardware) official SSDs and SSD kits that combine these with the M.2 HAT+.
Earlier in the year when I decided to speed up my Raspberry Pi 5, I opted to use the Pimoroni’s NVMe Base to connect a Crucial P3. To connect an SSD you have to use a HAT like the Pimoroni Base—or the official Raspberry Pi one—because the Pi 5 doesn’t have an M.2 connector built into the board. It has a PCIe connector that you can use a ribbon cable to connect a HAT to; this way lots of different PCIe devices can be used.
