The CM5 needs an adaptor for everything. All IO. The Pi 5 needs an adaptor only for the NVMe. I found, in my location, the Pi 5 + NVME adaptor cheaper than the CM5 with an IO board containing NVMe. I chose a Geekworm NVMe adaptor to use my existing 2280 NVMe SSD.without an adapter
Both need fan assisted cooling when you run the CPU at full speed all the time. Both can run with only heatsinks when full power usage is intermittent.
Both need a good power supply. Some IO boards for the CM5 have voltage regulators to run from 12 volt, an advantage for installation in a car or caravan or boat. I found none of the CM5 IO boards for 12 volts fitted my requirements and a good 12 volt supply was not much cheaper than the Pi 5 official power supply.
If you only need 1 TB of NVMe and decide to use the official hat, 2242 size NVMe SSDs are the same price as the 2280 equivalents as they use the same chips. You need a 2280 only when you want 4 TB or want to reuse an existing SSD. Geekworm and other suppliers have many choices for 1 or 2 2280 SSDs on a Pi 5.
SATA III speed is similar to USB 3. A SATA III disk in a USB 3.1 enclosure works well in a Pi 5. I use a large capacity 3.5 inch disk in an externally powered USB 3.1 enclosure. I specify USB 3.1 instead of 3 as the USB 3 standard is really sloppy. The USB 3.1 standard corrects the mistakes of USB 3. You can run 2 USB disks at full speed in a Pi 5.
If you need more than 1 * NVMe + 2 * USB 3.1 SATA disks, choose an Intel based desktop. You can easily and cheaply have 1 * 4 TB SSD + 5 * 16 TB SATA in a RAID 5 for 64 TB of reliable and fast storage. There are, in our area, heaps of desktops like that thrown out as they will not run Windows 11.
How many disks do you have? What is your total storage requirement?
I threw out an old Intel box last week because of the insane power usage when compared to a Pi 5. The device was on 24/7 so the power usage is a significant cost. Plus the noise from all the fans.
Statistics: Posted by peterlite — Tue Jun 10, 2025 6:05 am