Choosing an NVME M.2 2280 SSD Drive

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MikeAqua

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#324442 10-Apr-2026 12:36

I have one of these SSD hats for my Pi 4.

Looking for some advice around SSD selection. There seems to be a lot of choice and quite a wide price range. Especially if you consider ALiX etc.

I'm looking around the 500GB mark. Budget up to $300. I'm inclined to stick with local vendor. I've been looking ta PB Tech and Ascent, but open to other suggestions.

Use will be in Pi 4 running (in docker) PiHole, Unbound, Watchtower, RPi Monitor, Immich and a music server. The main storage demand will be photos and music files.

The advice I'm looking for is reputable brands and suppliers, potential pitfalls, any technical gotchas to be aware of. Any other general advice on the topic is appreciated.

Mike

Jase2985

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#3479852 10-Apr-2026 13:17

For your use case pretty much anything will do. its not strenuous or anything like that.

DRAM (HRB) cache is always good thing but wouldn't be a dealbreaker.

richms

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#3479855 10-Apr-2026 13:27

I have the actual raspi hat which takes shorter drives, and just use a 250gig generic that I got from PB back when you could get them for $30 or so from system pulls for upgrades.

I would be more worried about power consumption for a pi than performance, its only getting a single lane so cant go fast anyway.

Richard rich.ms

cddt

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#3479864 10-Apr-2026 14:54

I am selling 256 GB drives which I think would suit... SK hynix PC711 HFS256GDE9X073N

PM me for details.

SpartanVXL

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#3479866 10-Apr-2026 15:22

Dram will help if you do anything with an OS on it.

Recommend finding the model on Amazon AU to see if it’s cheaper.

cddt

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#3479960 11-Apr-2026 06:47

cddt:

I am selling 256 GB drives which I think would suit... SK hynix PC711 HFS256GDE9X073N

PM me for details.

I will sell one of these for half the price of the cheapest 256 GB you can get from PB Tech (or similar). 😀

MikeAqua

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#3482492 20-Apr-2026 12:46

Update: For better or worse, I bought one of these. And an enclosure so I can load the Pi OS onto it with RPi imager.

WD Green SN3000 500GB 5000MB/s PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD – NotBadTech

Mike