On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 05:27 AM, Gerald Sherman wrote:
Apparently it is possible to boot the Pi from a USB stick instead of the uSD card.? How is this done?? Sorry for my ignorance.
?is a user-friendly guide.
These instructions show you how to use Imager (from the Pi itself or another computer) to write a bootable program to a spare sdcard that will update the Pi 4's firmware (in particular, its Bootloader) and its configuration so it can support USB boot, then boot that sdcard and it will silently update the firmware.
Then you return to booting from the original Pi sdcard and get back to the Desktop which will take a bit longer because the Pi now searches for USB drives (which you have not yet added).
Next, attach the new USB drive then use SD Card Copier to copy the contents of the sdcard onto the USB drive.? It will use all available space on the USB drive, which is what you typically want.
Then when it finishes, shut down the Pi, take out the sdcard so it isn't used for booting, power up, and you should be running from the USB drive.
Some
important warnings first:
1)
Make a backup of the sdcard first and put that backup aside.? You definitely want a way to go back to the old system if something goes wrong!? I typically use SD Card Copier to do this.
2) Be aware that many USB storage adapters (like USB-to-SATA and USB-to-NVMe devices) draw more power than the Pi can reliably provide.? When a Pi doesn't get enough power it just crashes and reboots with no warning at all and no log file entry to help you figure out what happened.? In the case of sbitx I find that it is worse than other Pi boards I've used because the Pi is drawing power from the sbitx motherboard via GPIO pins and the regulator on the sbitx seems to be limited.? Maybe this is because it doesn't want to abuse the GPIO pins by delivering too much current, I don't know.? Bottom line:
if the sbitx Pi crashes a lot when booting from USB storage, make sure to use a powered USB hub between the Pi and the device.???
In general I've had to use a powered hub for any USB storage adapter other than a USB-to-sdcard adapter, because sooner or later it gets crashy, especially under load such as installing OS upgrades or building software.? Random crashes can corrupt the data on the device(s) so it really should be avoided.?
In short I recommend you use a powered hub if you have any doubts.Having said all this, IMO using a USB to NVMe adapter with powered hub for sbitx makes so many things go much faster and is worth the effort.?
I have a Pi 5 setup (which I'm not using in sbitx, yet) and am getting a PCIe to NVMe board today according to the delivery status updates, and I bet that thing will fly!? Unfortunately Pi 5 only has one lane PCIe.? Hopefully the next Pi will have more lanes for external PCIe devices.
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Regards,
Dave, N1AI
Dave, N1AI