Head straight towards this article’s guidelines if you are searching for an answer to whether there is a way to upgrade the RAM size on the Raspberry Pi device.
Can I Upgrade the RAM of Raspberry Pi
No, Raspberry Pi’s RAM can’t be upgraded because it is soldered on the Raspberry Pi board and even if one can find a Raspberry Pi compatible RAM it is still very difficult to mount it onto a Raspberry Pi board. Further, it doesn’t have any slot for adding additional RAM to the device. The biggest reason that you can’t upgrade the RAM is that it is attached to the CPU and if anyone tries to remove the RAM, there are higher chances of damaging the entire Raspberry Pi device.
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What is the Maximum RAM a Raspberry Pi Device Has?
The latest model of Raspberry Pi is Raspberry Pi 4B, which offers an 8GB RAM version and is the highest available RAM option in any Raspberry Pi device. So, if you are using any 2GB, or 4GB RAM variant of Raspberry Pi board then you can upgrade your Raspberry Pi RAM by purchasing a Raspberry Pi 4B model with 8GB RAM. Mostly 8GB RAM is more than enough to perform any desired operations on Raspberry Pi. If you have no idea what 8GB RAM is capable of then check out this article.
How to Check RAM Size on Raspberry Pi
RAM is the only inbuilt memory of Raspberry Pi and the device offers multiple RAM variants ranging from 1GB to 8GB RAM. To check the RAM size of your Raspberry Pi device, you can run any of the below-written commands:
Command 1:
As a result, your RAM size will appear on the terminal:
Command 2:
In the output you can easily see the total, used and free space on your RAM. The highlighted number is the size of RAM in the below image:
For further help, you can follow here.
Is there any Raspberry Pi Model with RAM Greater than 8 GB?
No, not yet. The latest model of Raspberry Pi is 4B which was released in June 2019 and it has the highest RAM capacity which is 8 GB. But we have seen that every time a new model of Raspberry Pi is launched it comes with betterments in the previous version, so we can expect a greater RAM size in the Raspberry Pi 5 model which is yet to release. To further read about Raspberry Pi 5 and its release date, read the article.
How to Add Additional Space on Raspberry Pi?
Physically you can’t upgrade the RAM of Raspberry Pi. Still, there are a few tips that could help you to have more storage space on your Raspberry Pi device:
- Choose a lightweight OS
- Expand the File system
- Remove unnecessary/unused packages
- Increase the Capacity of RAM by adding ZRAM
- Mount external storage such as USB, Hard Disk or SSD
The above methods will add an additional space to cover up excess RAM utilization on your Raspberry Pi device.
Final Thoughts
It is not possible to upgrade Raspberry Pi’s RAM since it is soldered with the Raspberry Pi board. Trying to remove it can damage the entire device board. You can opt for the 8GB RAM size Raspberry Pi model, which is enough for performing several computing tasks. However, if you run out of RAM, you can add additional space to increase the device’s performance. It can be done by choosing a lightweight OS, expanding the file system, removing unnecessary packages, increasing the RAM capacity through ZRAM, and mounting external storage, such as USB, hard disk, or SSD.
