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Author Topic: RPi USB Booting  (Read 2547 times)

tiffy

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RPi USB Booting
« on: June 29, 2020, 12:18:34 PM »

For anyone who may not have noticed, Raspberry Pi Org have finally introduced native USB booting option on RPi 4B, excellent third party video on implementation available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zrwjGcyM5s

USB booting work arounds were available for the RPi 4B and earlier 3B/3B+ models but were quite involved and most still required an SD card as well as a suitable USB device.
Note, the bootloader FW change required is still a beta release, warnings are issued in the video.

Have tried out on a RPi4B, 2Gb. RAM version with a 120Gb. SSD & USB-3 SATA adaptor, works very well using the latest available bootloader beta FW dated 15/06/20.
One thing I noticed, if running with both SD & SSD connected, any changes made such as re-naming etc. appear to be implemented on the SD card only, absolutely no reason to have an SD card inserted of course, just an experiment to see if this would still boot.

I think this would work with a RPi 3B+ or even a RPi 3B running on the new Raspberry Pi OS which is currently just modified Raspbian Buster, have not tried either model as yet.
Will certainly make RPi projects such as a NAS, VPN etc. a lot easier to set up.
   
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: RPi USB Booting
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2020, 12:35:37 PM »

I'm just thinking of the reliability angle, microSD cards are tiny and cheap, no way they can have the endurance of a proper SSD so this opens up a lot of options.  At least if you can overcome the USB power delivery issues.
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tiffy

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Re: RPi USB Booting
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2020, 05:59:58 PM »

Quote
At least if you can overcome the USB power delivery issues.

Shouldn't have any issues powering a SSD drive via a USB-SATA adaptor, certainly on the RPi 4B with it's USB-3 ports, works for me.
I have also run the same setup on a RPi 3B+ which has USB-2 ports only without the need for a powered hub or externally powered USB-SATA adaptor.
If a "mechanical" HD was utilised on a size v cost basis then an external power source would most likely be required, powered hub or powered USB-SATA adaptor.

The RPi 4B of course has the dual advantage over earlier models of a true G.Bit LAN port and 2 USB-3 ports.
With the 2 Gb. RAM version of the RPi 4B now being the base model and at the same cost as the original 1 Gb. RAM model it's good value, the only disadvantage being that the PSU has been upgraded power wise and it's connector changed so can't easily use the old models PSU..

As mentioned at the end of the video, link supplied on previous post, a 2Gb. RAM RPi 4B plus 120Gb. SSD plus a USB-3/SATA adaptor would cost less than a 8Gb. RAM RPi 4B, certainly a consideration where bulk storage size was more important than operating speed for many applications.     
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