A USB flash drive is one of those small essentials you reach for from time to time to back up data or transfer files between your Raspberry Pi and substitute computers. For basics like these, it's tempting to reach for the cheapest thing on Amazon or whatever you find in your local supermarket, but you can easily end up with a device that has sluggish read and write speeds, fragile casing, or - worst of all - far less storage capacity than it claims. Better to go with something you can rely on: introducing the Raspberry Pi Flash Drive , a compact high-capacity USB 3.0 USB‑A device with fast data transfer and an all‑aluminium enclosure. It's available now at $30 for 128 GB, or $55 for 256 GB.

We've brought our usual exacting standards and attention to detail to our new accessory. It can sustain a write speed of 75 MB/s (128 GB variant) or 150 MB/s (256 GB variant), and our thorough testing has made sure it can handle the demands of real life when it comes to sudden disconnection and power failure. Its ergonomic all-aluminium enclosure is easy to grasp and almost impossible to break, although you'll manage it if, like jdb of this parish, you go at it with a blowtorch. It has an attachment hole so you can keep it on a keyring or similar. The Raspberry Pi logo is etched with classy understatement onto its upper surface.