SmittyHalibut

Anyone here run their RPi4 off USB attached SSD? Is it really as straightforward as it looks?

My RPi based home server is getting more and more on it. It’s running a high-endurance SD card, but I’m still worried about it’s longevity, just from a write-fatigue standpoint.

I just bought a USB3 to M.2 SATA board: https://a.co/d/1mT4XRZ to run the system off of.

I’ve read the instructions, and it looks pretty straight forward to setup. Makes me worried: “this is too simple.” :-)

Nov 26, 2022 at 2:36amWeb
Show threadSmittyHalibutNov 27, 2022

General consensus from everyone who's responded to this so far is "...yeah... It just works..."

I love it when a plan comes together. Thanks everyone for your feedback! 🙂

Show threadSmittyHalibutDec 11, 2022

Following up on this:
`raspi-config` let me pick USB first for booting. Did that before shutting anything down.

Copied disk: `dd if=[sd card] of=[ssd]` (On my laptop, not the Pi, so [sd card] wasn't mounted at the time.)

It JUST WORKED. Booted right up. I can now expand the root partition to take up the rest of the SSD.

That was *narrows eyes* a little TOO easy...

Show threadTom-bstone 🪦⚰️Dec 11, 2022
@smitty I haven’t tried it but I had heard it is that strangely easy these days…
Show threadSmittyHalibutDec 11, 2022
@Erased_Citizen it was in fact stupidly easy.
Show threadTom-bstone 🪦⚰️Dec 11, 2022
@smitty excellent! I’d be curious to see if there’s a performance advantage as well as the longevity benefits. Might have to try it some time.
Show threadK5KHK / Karl HeinzDec 11, 2022
@smitty Just make sure you know exactly what goes with the if and of parameters. It does not matter how fast you are pushing CTRL-C for the rest of the workday… When I did that, it required a trip down to the tape vault and hopping that the last backup actually worked. #TheThingsWeDoWhenWeAreYoung
Show threadSmittyHalibutDec 12, 2022
@K5KHK I check my dd commands before hitting enter even more than I check my rm -rf commands, and that’s a whole lot. Yes, I too have learned that lesson the hard way.
Show threadDave, N8SBEDec 12, 2022
@smitty Cool. What I'd like to do, though, is upgrade a RPi-based hotspot that is currently running off of (I think) eMMC (like a BeagleBone). It's running the previous major release of Pi-Star, and apparently you can't upgrade from one major release to another without making an SD card image and booting from that. The hotspot has an SD slot (unused), but NO instructions on how to do this, and the company is out of business. Seems like it should be simple, no?
Show threadK5KHKNov 26, 2022
@smitty It was pretty straight forward. I’ve done it some time ago, so don’t remember any details. If something would have gone wrong, I would remember :)
Show threadDK4HAA - HarmNov 26, 2022
@smitty It is that easy and works very reliable. I use it for my ham gobox and photobox PIs for years.
Show threadGraham McIntire W5ISPNov 26, 2022
@smitty I have one in my truck running from an external SSD for a mobile plex server. You have to boot from the sd card to change the boot setting and then it… just works and I’ve never had to touch it again.
Show threadAaron HuslageNov 26, 2022
@smitty it sort of just works. I’ve done it a bunch.
Show thread📻 Tony N0RUA 📻Nov 27, 2022
@smitty This is cool, now I want to do it, but I don't want to give up my nice RPi case. Any idea if there are cases that enclose all this?
Show threadSmittyHalibutNov 27, 2022
@tony no idea. My RPi case is… …rather overkill. I’m currently trapped under a cat, or I’d go take a picture. So instead, here’s me trapped under a cat.
Show threadDave, N8SBENov 28, 2022
@smitty @tony I purchased a Beagle Black some time ago, thinking that the 8GB of eMMC memory would be better than wearing out an SD card on a RPi. Funny, I never got around to using it, because I actually didn't have a particular project in mind. It seems that I need a project to bury a board in, to actually get me to use one.
Show threadSmittyHalibutNov 28, 2022
@n8sbe @tony that’s true about so many thing. Doing something: a build, learning a skill or tool, etc. Without a goal in mind, you’re doing it in a vacuum and it makes it difficult. I absolutely have that problem too.