SSD for Pi-Top?

Question

I have a Pi Desktop with SSD and like it a lot, but now I see the Pi-Top laptop that is even better in having access to breadboarding.

But, is there room/support for adding an SSD to the Pi-Top?

Thanks,

Jay

beacon_dave · Answer

Perhaps use a right-angle USB cable/adapter and then mount the SSD drive on the rail inside the Pi-Top.

beacon_dave · Answer

From the photo, it looks as if one of the USB ports is made available inside the Pi-Top on the hub board: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/knolling-shot-new-pi-top-web.jpg

beacon_dave · Answer

That's the old Pi-Top you are looking at there. The current Pi-Top has a different layout. Using a USB SSD looks easy with the old Pi-Top as the Pi's USB ports aren't flush to the outside like the new ones are. https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/34955 With the new Pi-Top, it looks like you get two USB ports flush with the outside of the case and the other two have slim-line right-angle ribbon connectors which then run to the hub board inside. One appears to be taken to a USB port on the hub which appears to be available for internal peripherals to use.

beacon_dave · Answer

I already did... https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/knolling-shot-new-pi-top-web.jpg Silver rectangle above the F5 key The black diagonal on the left looks like the USB ribbon coming from the two right-angle plugs that fit into the R-Pi. The current Pi-Tops appear to have the R-Pi located top left and a track pad below the keyboard. https://pi-top.com/products/pi-top https://static.pi-top.com/documents/pi-top/pi-top_Instruction_Manual.pdf The older Pi-Tops appear to have the R-Pi top right and a track pad to the right of the keyboard. https://static.pi-top.com/documents/pi-top/Original_pi-top_Instruction_Manual.pdf The link to the Adafruit learning site you posted appears to show the older Pi-Top.

Former Member · Answer

Making a mounting bracket may not be necessary. There are mSATA/USB stackable boards for the Raspberry Pi. Here are 2 examples from https://www.startech.com/Search?search_term=msata+raspberry

Obviously, you can't stack inside the pi-top enclosure but the screws seem to line up with the Raspberry Pi which mounts magnetically on the rails. It would appear that the mSATA cards could mount the same way. I just need to go to a store which has a display pi-top model and verify that there is enough left over area for an extra board - should be - and an mSATA card can mount the same way. Maybe, I can talk them into letting me try it out with the display model before purchasing.

Make sense?

Hopefully, there is enough power running on the battery as well as off a wall socket. Running off a battery for an SSD (non-mechanical drive) should be okay. Other opinions?

beacon_dave · Answer

May be of interest - Felix has just done a video of a teardown of the new Pi-Top: sudo Sergeant 15: Pi-Top Teardown