Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC has been modded with an NVMe M.2 slot leveraging the device's conspicuously empty PCB… (original) (raw)

Earlier this month, Raspberry Pi launched the Pi 500 keyboard PC, which takes the internals of a Raspberry Pi 5 and slaps them into a keyboard enclosure doubling as a PC once the user adds power input and a monitor. As noted in our review, this launch came with a baffling omission of NVMe M.2 storage support, an issue that modders are now fixing. Thus, it's no surprise to see that the Raspberry Pi 500 has been modified to allow NVMe Gen 3 capabilities akin to those in the Raspberry Pi 5, with that in mind — SD card storage is fairly slow, and entry-level working/casual PCs like Pi 500 can still benefit from NVMe storage snappiness.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

An unnamed Raspberry Pi 500 modder speaking to developer and TechTuber Jeff Geerling was quoted in a December 13 blog post clarifying the nature of the empty, deactivated M.2 header present on the original Pi 500 board and explaining the steps needed to restore full functionality. Be mindful that if you're looking to take on this project for yourself, you will need to have appropriate soldering equipment and a microscope to do the job properly — but readers already comfortable with high-end tweaking and repair tasks may be willing to make that trade-off. Jeff Geerling is on the record hoping for a more powerful "Pro" or "Pro Max" Raspberry PI 500 kit outright, that will "give us everything", including the M.2 slot and PoE+ support apparently cut from the Pi 500 PCBs prior to release.

Considering the fact we already rate the Raspberry Pi 500 a clean 4.5/5 stars, we do agree that a "Pro or Pro Max" version of the Raspberry P 500 would be ideal for users who may otherwise be deterred by its few downsides, like lacking NVMe Gen 3 support without modding. For pretty much any workload we could reasonably imagine on a Raspberry Pi 500, NVMe Gen 3 support should provide more than enough throughput, particularly compared to slower, past forms of flash storage like SD cards.

Overall, it's an honest shame that M.2 isn't already included with a native empty slot on the final Pi 500 board...but the parts remaining still make it possible for a determined modder, and of course we can't expect everything users demand from a small form factor PC in this pricing range.

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