Apacer Targets Industrial Deployments with the PT25R-Pi HAT for the Raspberry Pi 5

Apacer has unveiled a solid-state storage add-on for the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer family, but unlike most it comes with the storage soldered in place — and is designed primarily with high-reliability industrial deployments in mind.

"[The] PT25R-Pi HAT SSD support[s] Raspberry Pi platforms," the company's stand at Computex 2025 in Taipei explains. "Compatible with PCIe [PCI Express] Gen. 4 x4 interface. Support[s] CoreSnapshot 2 (optional). Support write protect, Instant Keychange, and power loss protection. Capacity 60GB – 480GB."

That short poster summary, brought to our attention by CNX Software, raises a few eyebrows. The first is the claim of PCIe Gen. 4 four-lane connectivity: the board is designed for use with the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer, which exposes a single lane of PCIe Gen. 2 at a flat flexible circuit (FFC) connector to the left-hand edge. While it can be pushed to run at Gen. 3 speeds, it can't handle Gen. 4 — and there's nothing you can do to give it an additional three lanes.

More subtle is the reference to capacity. The overwhelming majority of HATs built around the Raspberry Pi 5's PCI Express connectivity break it out to a slot, typically M.2, for use with removable modules. Not so Apacer's design: the SSD module is soldered in place, and not user-upgradeable.

There's a reason for this: the company is targeting industrial and embedded deployments where reliability is key, also promising support for its CoreSnapshot 2 quick-recovery resiliency system and Instant Keychange — the latter promising to swap out the device's encryption key in under a second when triggered by hardware or software. There's also a tantalum capacitor, designed to flush changes to the drive in the event of power loss.

While Apacer was showing the device off to Computex attendees this week, though, it has yet to announce pricing or availability.

Main article image courtesy of TLS via CNX Software.