As great as the Raspberry Pi is -- and let's be honest, all of the devices in that family are excellent, especially for the money -- it's not the only such device available to buy, and some of the rival systems are arguably better as they come with Wi-Fi built-in, and other tricks, such as the ability to double as a wireless router, run Android, or display on-board scrolling messages.
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While there are plenty of pricier (and therefore more powerful) options available, I've focused on the more affordable choices here -- ones that match, or better, the Raspberry Pi for value and will do everything you'd expect from them, and more.
My final choice is, admittedly, more expensive at $70, but occasionally you might require something with a little more oomph, so I've included it here anyway.
Like the Raspberry Pi systems, you will probably need to spend a little extra on the required cables etc., if you don't have them to hand, so do bear that in mind when buying. You can also pick up cases for some of the devices too.
If you own any of the products I've covered below, please let me know what you think of them in the comments. I'd be particularly interested to know whether you'd recommend them or not.
VoCore2
I wrote about this coin-sized Linux computer/fully functional wireless router last week. It's a cube-shaped device that comes packed with ports, including Ethernet, USB 2.0, microSD slot, and audio jack. You can read more about it here.
The full VoCore2 costs just $11.99, but there's a Lite version priced at just $3.99.
You can get one by pledging on Indiegogo now. Shipping is due to begin next month.
Omega2
This is a $5 Raspberry Pi rival from the Onion Corporation that comes with integrated Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and on-board flash storage. It runs a custom Linux distro based on OpenWrt and can also run FreeBSD. There is a selection of apps available to download for it from the Onion App Store.
It's modular, so you can easily expand its capabilities -- add Bluetooth, or GPS for example.
Omega2 was successfully crowdfunded on both Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Shipping is expected to begin next month. Read more about it here.
Orange Pi PC2
Orange Pi is a powerful 64-bit Raspberry Pi rival -- well, clone would be a more accurate description -- with Ethernet, three USB ports, USB OTG, 1GB of RAM and a quad-core 64-bit Cortex-A53 processor, and a standalone graphics chip.
It can run Android 4.4, Ubuntu, Debian, Raspbian, and Banana Pi.
It's priced at $19.98 and available to buy now.
The same company makes a variety of other Orange Pis, including an Orange Pi Zero (pictured below) for $7 which has built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet.
Find out more, and buy an Orange Pi here.
NanoPi 2 Fire
The NanoPi 2 Fire costs $22.99 and for that you get a device powered by an A9 quad-core SoC, with 1GB of DDR3 RAM, Ethernet (no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth though), and USB 2.0. A power management unit supports software power-off, sleep, and wake up functions.
It can run both Debian Linux and Android 5.1.
Find out more, or buy one from here.
BBC micro:bit
The BBC's tiny programmable computer is -- like the Raspberry Pi -- primarily aimed at schools, and indeed up to a million were given away free to school children in the UK. It has since started rolling out globally and is now handled by the non-profit Micro Bit Educational Foundation.
The device is powered by a 32-bit ARM Cortex processor and comes with a built-in 5x5 LED matrix that gives you 25 individually programmable red LEDs to use as a display, some push buttons, so you can interact with games and programs, and an Accelerometer, Magnetometer and Bluetooth antenna.
It costs £12.99 in the UK (which equates to $16). For two quid extra ($2.50) you can get a BBC micro:bit Go starter kit which includes the device, Micro USB cable, battery pack and four project ideas to get you started.
Find out more about the micro:bit here.
ODROID-C2
At $40, the ODROID-C2 is fractionally more expensive than the Raspberry Pi 3, but it's a 64-bit quad core single board computer powered by a Coretex-A53 (ARMv8) processor with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet.
How To Copy Raspberry Pi Image
There's four USB 2.0 ports, one USB OTG, microSD card slot, and it can run Android 5.1 and Ubuntu 16.04.
The same company makes a variety of other Orange Pis, including an Orange Pi Zero (pictured below) for $7 which has built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet.
Find out more, and buy an Orange Pi here.
NanoPi 2 Fire
The NanoPi 2 Fire costs $22.99 and for that you get a device powered by an A9 quad-core SoC, with 1GB of DDR3 RAM, Ethernet (no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth though), and USB 2.0. A power management unit supports software power-off, sleep, and wake up functions.
It can run both Debian Linux and Android 5.1.
Find out more, or buy one from here.
BBC micro:bit
The BBC's tiny programmable computer is -- like the Raspberry Pi -- primarily aimed at schools, and indeed up to a million were given away free to school children in the UK. It has since started rolling out globally and is now handled by the non-profit Micro Bit Educational Foundation.
The device is powered by a 32-bit ARM Cortex processor and comes with a built-in 5x5 LED matrix that gives you 25 individually programmable red LEDs to use as a display, some push buttons, so you can interact with games and programs, and an Accelerometer, Magnetometer and Bluetooth antenna.
It costs £12.99 in the UK (which equates to $16). For two quid extra ($2.50) you can get a BBC micro:bit Go starter kit which includes the device, Micro USB cable, battery pack and four project ideas to get you started.
Find out more about the micro:bit here.
ODROID-C2
At $40, the ODROID-C2 is fractionally more expensive than the Raspberry Pi 3, but it's a 64-bit quad core single board computer powered by a Coretex-A53 (ARMv8) processor with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet.
How To Copy Raspberry Pi Image
There's four USB 2.0 ports, one USB OTG, microSD card slot, and it can run Android 5.1 and Ubuntu 16.04.
Find out more, and buy it here.
C.H.I.P.
This board comes with built in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.0, a 1GHz R8 processor, 512MB RAM and 4GB of storage, all for just $9.
It runs the C.H.I.P. operating system, which is based on Linux Debian.
You can pre-order it here, and shipping is estimated at some time later this month.
Banana Pi M3
If you don't fancy a Raspberry Pi, or an Orange Pi, and price isn't your primary consideration, there's always a Banana Pi. This board comes with an octa-core processor and 2GB of RAM, it includes Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports, one USB OTG, SATA, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), and Bluetooth 4.0, and can run Android, Lubuntu, Ubuntu, Debian, and Raspbian. It's more expensive at $70, but you do get what you pay for. You can find out more, and discover stockists here.
There are other boards available, including the Banana Pi BPI-M64.
Case: Can I Clone a Raspberry Pi SD Card?
'Can anyone help? I have my Raspberry Pi model 3 image on a 16 GB micro SD card. I tried to clone the card to another card but I find that the new card is a few MB smaller!'
Raspberry Pi is a series of credit-card sized and single-board computers that plugs into a computer monitor or TV. It enables users to do basically everything you can expect on a desktop computer. Meanwhile, it has been widely used in many areas for its low cost and high portability.
The Raspberry Pi SD card inserted to the board works as hard drive. If it gets corrupted by power outage, overclocking, or some other reasons, you have no choice but to start from scratch, which is quite frustrating.
In this case, you may want to clone the Raspberry Pi SD card to another card for better performance, or keep the copy as a backup. But how can you do that? Easy audio capture download. Is there an effective SD card copier?
Advantages of Cloning Raspberry Pi SD Card
Data protection:
If you've been using Raspberry Pi for a while, you probably know it's a finicky little device. Especially when you use Raspberry Pi as a media center or retro gaming station, the SD card would be crashed and corrupted easily. Thus you may lost everything on it. To avoid this tragedy, you could clone the Raspberry Pi SD card to protect the data.
SD card upgrade:
If the Raspberry Pi SD card has insufficient space or poor performance, you can upgrade it to larger one or newer one. In this case, cloning your Raspberry Pi SD card to another is a good way to avoid data loss.
Best Free SD Clone Clone Software for Raspberry Pi
To clone or backup Raspberry Pi SD Card, the simplest and safest way is to use an effective cloning tool like AOMEI Backupper Standard.
◆ AOMEI Backupper integrates complete features including the Disk Clone. When it comes to Raspberry Pi SD card cloning, you can connect it as an external hard drive.
◆ This software runs in an intelligent clone mode by default. It only clones used sectors so that you can even clone SD card to a smaller disk (as in the case at the beginning). If you have a larger disk or SD card as the destination, you can also choose the sector-by-sector mode to make an exact copy of all the sectors, no matter used or not.
◆ The cloning process is rather simple. All the operations can be done within several steps.
◆ AOMEI Backupper Standard is completely FREE, and enough to complete the disk cloning. If you want to enjoy some advanced features like editing partition size of destination disk, cloning dynamic disk, cloning GPT to MBR or vice versa, you can also upgrade to Professional or higher editions.
How to Clone Raspberry Pi SD Card with AOMEI Backupper?
With all these information, you can get started to clone Raspberry Pi SD card.
Preparations:
● Shut down your Raspberry Pi and remove the SD card.
● Install AOMEI Backupper on a Windows computer.
● Use SD Card Reader to connect the Raspberry Pi SD card to the computer.
● If you want to clone the SD card to another, connect the destination card as well. If your computer already has a SD card slot, you just need to prepare one Reader.
Clone SD card to another with AOMEI Backupper:
1. Launch the software, go to Clone tab and click Disk Clone. It will copy everything on the SD card.
2. Select the Raspberry Pi SD card as the source disk, click Next.
3. Choose the destination disk. In this case it's another SD card you just connected. Click Next to continue.
4. Customize the cloning as you need, then click Start Clone and wait for the process to complete.
◆ SSD Alignment: for a destination SSD, this option will accelerate the reading and writing speed therefore improve the performance.
◆ Sector by Sector Clone: to create an intact copy of all the sectors, you can tick this option. Otherwise it will only clone used sectors.
◆ Edit Partition: in advanced editions, you can use this feature to adjust the destination disk's partition size and drive letter.
When the cloning is over, you can remove the SD cards, and insert the cloned card to the Raspberry Pi.
Best Raspberry Pi Clone Pi
Tips:
The destination disk or SD card will be overwritten so please backup important data on it at first.
If you fail to connect two SD cards at the same time, you can back up the SD card to computer first, and then restore the image file to the new card instead.
Verdict
To clone Raspberry Pi SD card to another, an effective cloning tool like AOMEI Backupper could be a big help. If works on all Windows OS and enables you clone internal or external disks. Not only disk, you can even it use to clone Windows operating system, therefore to migrate only OS to another SSD or HDD. And in daily use, it also works as an all-around data protection solution to backup and restore.
