The All-in-One Power and Storage Solution for Your Pi 5 Server

Raspberry Pi computers may be best known for the way they can easily plug into DIY hardware designs. But that’s not all they can do. More recent models, in particular, pack a pretty good punch in terms of computing horsepower. This makes them well-suited for a number of always-on, self-hosted services. Raspberry Pis are increasingly being used to build NAS and home automation systems, for instance.

However, when you move from blinking some LEDs to hosting servers, you’ll need to add some more hardware into the mix. You can’t have your servers crashing every time the power dips for a moment, so a battery backup is essential. Furthermore, when you’ve got heavy disk I/O activity, an SD card is no longer going to cut it for primary storage—you had better switch to an SSD unless you enjoy data corruption.

The SupTronics X1208 was designed to meet both of these needs with a single device. It is both a UPS and an M.2 NVMe SSD HAT for Raspberry Pi 5 computers. When installed, it will keep you up and running when the lights go out, and also provide a fast and reliable storage solution.

The X1208 integrates a 5.1V/5A uninterruptible power supply directly into a Raspberry Pi 5 stack, delivering enough current to handle demanding workloads and multiple peripherals. Power is supplied via USB-C and routed through the board’s advanced power-path management system, which enables switching between external power and its onboard battery. This ensures continuous uptime even during outages.

The UPS functionality relies on a single 21700 lithium-ion battery, with support for cells up to 5,000mAh. Charging is handled at a default 1.5A rate, and the system includes multiple layers of protection, such as overcurrent, overvoltage, and reverse-polarity safeguards. A built-in Maxim fuel gauge provides real-time battery data over I2C, allowing users to monitor voltage and capacity programmatically. LED indicators on the board offer a quick visual reference for charge levels.

For storage, there is an M.2 M-key slot that supports NVMe SSDs in 2230, 2242, and 2280 form factors, with capacities up to 4TB. Thanks to PCIe connectivity, users can achieve transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps on PCIe 2.0 or even 8Gbps under PCIe 3.0 configurations. Importantly, the board supports booting directly from the SSD, making it a viable replacement for microSD-based systems in performance-critical applications.

The board connects to the Raspberry Pi 5 via a PCIe FFC cable and powers the system directly through the 40-pin GPIO header, eliminating extra wiring. A pogo pin interfaces with the Pi’s onboard power switch, allowing the X1208’s button to mirror native power controls. Additional features include automatic shutdown on low battery, auto power-on when external power is restored, and GPIO-based power loss detection.

You can pick an X1208 up for about $45 at present.