I tested Raspberry Pi’s new USB flash drive, and it has one key advantage over competitors

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One thing that you can always be sure of when it comes to Raspberry Pi accessories is that they are always made to the highest quality. 

I’ve never bought anything with that has the Raspberry Pi logo emblazoned on it and been disappointed, and the latest Raspberry Pi Flash Drive is no exception.

But it’s just a boring old flash drive, right?

Wrong.  

When the news broke about the new Flash Drive, it was pitched as the perfect accessory for those who want high-speed storage that went above and beyond what the humble microSD card could offer, but you don’t want the hassle of using a more fixed solution like the M.2 HAT+ (which, remember, is only compatible with the Pi 5). 

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Removable drivers are really handy in industrial settings and for things like NAS boxes.

There’s no doubt that the good old USB flash drive is still a handy form factor. And when it’s encased in tough, heat-dissipating aluminum, with the capacity and Raspberry Pi logo deeply embedded in the shell. 

But can’t you just use any old USB flash drive? 

Well, you can, but there are a couple of features that are pretty specific to the Raspberry Pi Flash Drive. The first is SMART health reporting and support for TRIM. While I’ve come across a few drives that had the chips to do this, I can’t think of any other flash drives off the top of my head that offer this. 

Without SMART, I wouldn’t trust a flash drive to handle important stuff like holding vital data, and I definitely wouldn’t use it as a boot drive on a critical system. 

How it performs

It’s also fast, especially the 256GB variant, which can achieve a sequential write speed of 150MB/s, double that of its smaller 128GB sibling. A lot of cheap flash drives I’ve tested have decent read speeds, but I’ve come across a lot of big-brand drives that have cripplingly slow write speeds, so it’s good to see this model keeping to its marketing promises.

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I’ve tested the Raspberry Pi Flash Drives — both capacities — on a number of systems, and the performance is as described, and it is capable of handling heavy, sustained loads. Another question I had about the drive was how it handled heat, and I’m happy to report that I had no issues at all — and even found the drive very effective at dissipating heat. 

One thing that everyone needs to bear in mind — and something that was a bit lost in the initial coverage, I think — is that this doesn’t replace anything. Raspberry Pi still supports (and even makes its own) microSD cards and M.2 SSDs. 

This is just another option. If microSD cards, M.2 SSDs, or even whatever old flash drive you have lying about work for you, then you carry on doing what works for you. What this offers is simply another option. 

ZDNET’s buying advice

Priced at $30 for the 128GB version, and $55 for the 256GB variant, the Raspberry Pi Flash Drive is a great option for someone looking for something better than a microSD card or some random flash drive, but who doesn’t want to go the whole hog and get an M.2 HAT+ and SSD. 

I’d also recommend these drives are also great solutions for those running a Pi 4 or earlier that can’t take an M.2 HAT+ upgrade. Yes, they’re flash drives, but these are darn good flash drives.

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