Hello! Before we get too much into this first batch of hardware, note that I’ve switched SBCs, hats and drives! You may decide you want to follow my path later! Here’s the breakdown tho! These are affiliate links. If you were so inclined to use them, I believe I’d get a small commission.
The Single Board Computer
The Raspberry Pi 5 8GB made this dream possible. It is the first model to sport an attachable PCIe ribbon that allows for NVMe hats to connect directly. It is the fastest Raspberry Pi to date and sports a decent amount of memory.
https://amzn.to/3ZfJq4m – Raspberry Pi 5 8GB – 89.99$
https://amzn.to/3XyBb2d – Raspberry Pi 5 8GB Kit – 159.99$
If you’re just starting out this is a good kit to get so you’ll have the HDMI cable and proper power supply as the Raspberry Pi 5 uses a lot more power than the Pi 4B.
The NVMe Hat
This was the first NVMe hat I chose. Very simple, it ‘fits’ into the official Raspberry Pi case. The problem is that the cover doesn’t snap in. Depending on your use case this may be fine since it exposes the GPIO pins. It can only fit a 2230/2242 M.2 drive. I think this thing is really well built with thoughtful design!
https://amzn.to/4d0MaWF – Waveshare PCIe to M.2 HAT – 15.99$
The 2242 M.2 SSD
I got this Samsung as a test. The Waveshare only fits the 2242 and I didn’t want to spend much on my first hardware revision. Before even the time of this writing I couldn’t find this drive again and Amazon recommended a Western Digital alternative, which worked great with the Waveshare. Later we’ll run into a problem with Western Digital. Samsung always worked with the hardware I’ve acquired.
https://amzn.to/4cTKmyx – Samsung PM9B1 256GB M.2 – 39.98$
https://amzn.to/4eyoTN9 – Watern Digital SN740 256GB M.2 – 20.99$
I don’t have any pictures of my original hardware designs. I had yet to think about sharing all the work I’ve put into this system. I’ll write down the steps as I remember them. I will come back to this post and update it when I decommission the Raspberry Pi 5s from the ARMada cluster.
If you want me to take down a Raspberry Pi5 node from the cluster sooner, feel free to donate and write that in the comment! Think of it as a bounty although I can’t promise how quickly I can get to it, but it would help me prioritize it!
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