Raspberry Pi 3 USB SSD Boot

[@rickdacosta1889]

You are a natural teacher...with just the right amount of levity and light-hearted banter to keep your students engaged. Thanks.

[@XRavenHunt]

Great video. I am running my Raspberry 3B+ on SSD just like that. Works great because it allows me to run server applications that would normally fail on SD cards. Overally, however, the speeds are not that great, hundred times better than SD card, but the USB2 interface is a huge bottleneck. This should be much less of a problem with Raspberry 4 on USB 3.0

[@martinmchugh1924]

Just like to echo many of the comments on here. You're videos are excellently presented. Good relevant content and very concisely explained throughout. Keep up the good work. It is appreciated.

[@1532duvet]

Worked first time and runs like a dream. Using a usb drive and boot time is faster. Find these videos really helpful and consider myself as a novice amateur. Thanks Chris!!!

[@ExplainingComputers]

An excellent result then! I'm glad that it worked for you. :)

[@sheldonwhitten990]

"this old SSD I have lying around" I wish I had SSDs lying around

[@ExplainingComputers]

A result of my age and occupation! :)

[@sheldonwhitten990]

@@ExplainingComputers maybe someday I'll have that many

[@TheEPROM9]

I can vouch for that. Go though your bins and pack rat kit you will end up with all sorts of hardwre just laying around.

[@itstricky2801]

Save your money, or go Panhandle at the Truck stop

[@tinkmarshino]

@@TheEPROM9 yeah but all mine is from before windows 3.1 agp cards anyone?

[@stupossibleify]

Great video! Remember that for those of us watching on the TV, the buttons at the end of the video don't display ;)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, indeed. But there are pressures on us KZbinrs to use end screens . . . They don't work in some Android browsers either.

[@wattage]

Incredibly useful tutorial! I shared a link to your vid on a group of RPi/Retro gaming enthusiasts on FB. Thank you!

[@GhostPressures]

Just wanted to say thanks for this! I am setting up a RACHEL-Pi for a school in Namibia and have been looking at PiDrive as an alternative to the MicroSD due to corruption and power outages. This is way better!

[@RCfromtheNYC]

Thanks for the tutorial! The mad scientist in me is going to try running RetroPie off of an SSD...stay tuned!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Do report back! :)

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

It's not every day where I find an old EC video that I haven't seen yet. You ought to do this again with the Pi 5!

[@wecole]

The extra little commentaries he throws into his videos always crack me up! "...unsafe mode, which is always an exciting thing to do, isn't it?...."

[@wecole]

BTW, I just purchased a new Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (June, 2018) and the one-time programmable memory bit (program_usb_boot_mode=1) was already pre-set to 1 at the factory.

[@highdesert50]

A timely and, as usual, very thorough presentation. Nice upgrade for schools and those on a limited budget by allowing near desktop performance without worrying about high IO demands to the SD.

[@wishiwasabear]

"This Old SSD I have lying around" are we here already? I am still using hard drives here...

[@leytonjay]

Kuma You gotta steal them from work. I liberated a 120GB SDDUltra which had been on a spare desk in design area for weeks. £2 usb connector from KZbin and I was in business.

[@AdamJee923]

The word on the web is soon it will be 'I just had this old 1TB m.2 lying around' true story.

[@cunnyman]

Just the usual KZbin guys stuff, "Oops, I jist found this Gtx 1080Ti lying around"

[@vipervidsgamingplus5723]

hell I still use a ata drive for a disk drive

[@dastanharris]

and I just found this core i7 8700k processor lying around for a test with this pi. soon! 😅

[@aparicorn4482]

This is interesting to say the least I'm glad to hear etcher will verify that it went through the first time

[@pmr1wrt53]

Today I tested it with a usb2.0/sata docking station for 2.5"/3.5" Drives and a 3.5" WD Blue 160 GB hard disk. This works great. The only problem is you can't resize the hdd with gparted after you started RPi 3 Jessie. I think it must be earlier, after fetching the image on the hdd. The new RPi 2B v1.2 has the same SoC as the RPi 3B the BCM2837. (ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor 900MHz - Broadcom BCM2837). Only the CPU speed limit has down to 900 MHz en it's now 64-bit. Thanks for this great video, never thought it was so simple!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this feedback, which is really useful for others here. In my tests Raspbian resized its partition on first boot. But if this does not happen, you should be able to use the Pi's preferences/setting panel to do a resize.

[@dennismaltz5643]

My wife works for a 3d fabricating company that has been using Pi. They configure them for controlling installation elements, including interactive media for their displays, like you see in museums, zoos, lobbies etc. They gave me a 3B to play with and all has gone well until I've been trying to boot from usb. I first bought an ADATA SU650 120 gb ssd, couldn't resist at $22 on Ebay. I used Raspian's own "copy SD card" app from nthe desktop intended for cloning, which wrote to my SSD while plugged into the RPI usb. Worked great, looks good. For the moment, the ssd is being powered by an old all-in-one powered setup used for benchwork with harddrives (don't know what they're called. It works as a drive but won't even attempt to boot. For testing, I cloned the same way to a 2nd but greater capacity sd card, via usb card reader. This cloned card works perfectly as a replacement card in the sd slot, but is problematic if I try to boot it via usb (original card has the same troubles). The attempted boot achieves varying results which I guess can happen because the read order is not consistent. There has to be a simple fix in the way of a pointer or moving file/s, but I haven't the experience to do more than keep searching. With the cloned sd I've even gotten to fully booted only to see it die immediately. More often it freezes during post at one of 2 places. Keeping an sd internally doesn't help. I am guessing that maybe the solution of leaving the boot partition on an internal sd, pointing to root via the usb should work, but that should not be necessary. I can't find any info that might help. It was suggested that the partition order can be an issue. I was wondering if Etcher might do something different, but it doesn't make sense that the Raspian native copier wouldn't work for using a cloned disk via usb, especially with how long they've had if it needed a fix. Noting again the cloned sd does work as an internal drive replacement. casePi is not the plus and needed the otp bit set. Does only the plus arrive with the OTP already set? If mine should have come already set, maybe that remains a problem even though I manually set it.

[@dirk4926]

Very cool how the Pi just keeps getting more and more versatile. I always enjoy, and learn something new from your videos, Christopher.

[@oldtimeengineer26]

Thanks for showing we can now use larger cheap usb stick

[@ExplainingComputers]

Exactly. :)

[@olarmariusalex]

As a suggestion, there is an awesome option of apt-get named "-y". With this option you can say Yes right on the command line not type it later when will always ask if we want to update/upgrade.

[@MrMajintiger]

play with the new pi4 config.txt file really waiting on that video.. also my pi in the mail ! love your show.. also not this video but a week with the pi.. you showed raspbian dosent handle ntfs by default.. this drove me crazy ended up making my storage ext4. as ntfs is normally used i do a lot of swapping. thanks to your video i actually solved it googled it but got no love or good answers. love your old school pace and uk flare. respect

[@PU7MZD]

An instant classic. Can't wait to try this out with a spare netbook HDD I have and my Pi3. Thank you so much!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :) Remember that a Pi will not be able to power an HDD directly.

[@CorpusOrganic]

thanks for that vid. i haven't been keeping up with the raspberry stuff. i had trouble finding the LED when you were talking about it flashing. i finally found it after a few seconds. it sounds like the SD card boot is still possible too. which is nice. really liked seeing that page on your sight. not certain i have looked over your site yet. that page looks like it would be a fascinating read. that looks like it is the type of information i like.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, the LEDs are hard to see! And also yes, you can still boot from the SD card (the Pi tries SD first, then USB).

[@ianide2480]

You can just keep the SD card and edit the boot parameters. So it still loads initially from the SD card but then it points at the USB drive. No changing anything permanently that way. This is the method that I use and it works perfect and the PI does not ever touch the SD card except on boot for a second or two. I use a couple of old laptop drives to swap for different setups and a powered HUB.

[@drTERRRORRR]

"How exciting!" That's probably the most british thing I've heard today.

[@cyberlizardcouk]

agreed on the usb3 matter. that would make an amazing difference.

[@semperparatus3685]

Professor, Where can I download that yellow box with the three black arrows so I can spped up my computer to ridiculous speed or is that a secret time compression prgm available only to CompSci Profs???

[@Butterfingers1989]

Sir, i simply love your videos and how clear you all this stuff. On a normal pc i know how to find my way but with these little one board computers i have to learn alot. Thanks for helping me in all this. Keep up the good work !

[@Demanufacturer]

Thanks for your vids. Have watched many videos, always well executed and with the correct thought process. Keep it up!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks.

[@rickdacosta1889]

Use of PINN explained would be an excellent resource for newbies like myself

[@jonmoore1614]

Of note - newer units that go out have this setting already set (purchased mine Nov 2018)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, this is true -- the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and A+ are preset for this; so this video covers what is necessary for a Pi 3 B only.

[@bluehornet6752]

Your command line history is written to the .bash_history file when you exit, so that's why it's still "in the buffer"... Awesome selection of videos on your channel by the way--very educational and helpful stuff!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks! :)

[@bluehornet6752]

No problem. I've been working on my Linux certification and my brain is full of (seemingly) useless little factoids that occasionally come in handy. Now trying to learn sed and awk. Great tools but confusing to learn...ugh. By the way--I also checked out some of the videos on your other channel. AMAZING how well those are, especially the ones about mining on asteroids and settling on the moon. Very impressive!

[@E3Property]

Please try this on your Raspberry Pi 4 with USB3, it would be very interesting to know if it becomes a truly usable desktop.

[@Trashpanda5568]

i was just about to suggest this!

[@alerey4363]

indeed he made a correct prediction with usb3 in the recent pi4!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Currently the USB 3.0 ports on the Pi 4B are not bootable. But they have promised a future software upgrade to make this so. :)

[@E3Property]

@@ExplainingComputers Of course you are right but it can boot from an SD whilst loading most of the OS and applications from an SSD. I hope this will make it a truly usable desktop computer.

[@ellooku]

What a wonderful update. I tried that before and no luck. Will try again after update.

[@JasonPhillips30]

You're a knowledgeable and well spoken man. Thanks for sharing!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks.

[@mradaChris]

Thank you for doing this video. I see that my goal of getting a R-Pi3 to boot in less than 2-3 seconds is an unreality!

[@robertpendergast2620]

Thanks. I have been interested in bypassing the SD card. (I think I will wait until it is perfected though and no longer dangerous to my Pi setup.)

[@RightToSelfDefense]

Wow. This should really help developers who are putting Android or Java, or large apps on their Raspberry that require more memory than a Flash memory card.

[@KuntalGhosh]

They should add some sata ports to the next version of raspberry pi!! It would be great if there is m.2 x4 pic slot for ultra fasf data transfer...

[@ExplainingComputers]

Next week here I will be looking at an SBC with a SATA port and two M.2 slots . . .

[@KuntalGhosh]

ExplainingComputers 2x m.2 rip!!! M.2 sata or m.2 pci express 4x?

[@josedourado3747]

ExplainingComputers udoo x86 ultra would be awesome

[@clangerbasher]

For a while now I said the Foundation should build an enthusiast's board with SATA and a lot of RAM etc. as an additional income stream to fund other cheaper lines.

[@Shmoozo55]

@ExplainingComputers I'm very much looking forward to that next video. I'm guessing that an SBC with those types of storage attachment ports could have a relatively powerful processor, a fast ethernet port and maybe even USB 3.0 ports as well.

[@neelstheron3252]

Now that we have the Pi4, this will now become very interesting doing this!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Right now, the Pi 4B cannot boot from USB. But they have promised an upgrade.

[@chimeranzl9147]

how exciting, hahaa, love it. It should be noted that doing this with a SATA or SAS drive may not work, as the Rpi can't provide enough power out it's USB port to power those drives

[@MarkTheMorose]

A neat way of circumventing the write cycle death of flash-based media, if one were to use an 'old fashioned' rotating rust hard drive.

[@asphixmx]

Some hard disk won't boot. Some usb-sata adapters won't let boot either. Don't be surprised if you try and the pi doesn't boot. I made some experiments with this and found even some USB pen drives boot, some doesn't. The same to the usb-sata adapters.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Useful feedback, thanks.

[@pedroramonalmeida918]

I am trying so hard to boot from my SSD OCZ 480GB or my WD blue 512 GB but only the usb flash drive 8GB from china work with the raspberian Stretch. For the SSD ans WD I user a Orico adapter also another one adaptet usb 2.0 with dedicated power supply. Do you think the problem can be the supply current to ssd or hdd?

[@harveyharbicht4959]

I like your videos and the laid-back way you get excited.

[@harveyharbicht4959]

Normal person: Yahoo Yippy Whoo hoo yeah! This guy: Well, that's quite nice, isn't it?

[@JerryDoe]

probably much easier installing raspbian onto the sd and remap /etc, /usr, /home to the SDD then your system boot speed isnt affected by the bottleneck, easier installation and your data is also safe on the SSD make an image from the SD after re-configuring the folders and you have a fresh install ready to restore if anything happens to it

[@stillfindingmyway]

As others have said, getting the Pi to boot from an USB Hard drive can be hard work. I managed to get my USB Hard drive to work as a boot device by installing Raspbian on it using NOOBs - a SD card is required to be in place all the time with this approach, but the Pi quickly switches to the USB hard drive once it starts up.

[@mayankshigaonker7725]

Lucky for Chris the raspberry pi 4 has a USB 3.0 Port

[@ExplainingComputers]

Indeed! But sadly, it is not yet bootable on the Pi 4B, unlike on the Pi 3B and 3B+ . . .

[@christiaansteenkamp5617]

@@ExplainingComputers Awww man I was about to ask you if it works on the pi4. I just finished writing burning raspian to a ssd...

[@RightToSelfDefense]

You make excellent example and tutorial videos. A true lesson in all forms of Pedagogy.

[@tibssy1982]

If you are running linux on that laptop to write the image to drive, why don't you use just dd?

[@tetsujin_144]

One of the benefits the etcher site mentions is that it's a cross-platform tool. I think that makes it a good choice for a video like this, where the audience may not be running Linux on their laptop or desktop machines

[@AdamJee923]

Such great videos sir. I'm brand new to all of this, learnt to and built my gaming rig ( first build ) end of last year and I have just bought a Raspberry Pi 3 model B ( Perfect time to buy in on one! ) and you videos help so thank you, keep doing what you are doing.

[@ufohunter3688]

Very informative video. Thanks. Why hasn't some one figured out a way to use the CSI ports to come up with a USB 3.0 daughter board for the Pi ? The hardware is there for high bandwidth transfer! You might even be able to emulate 2 x USB 3.0 ports by muxing! That would be awesome.

[@ExplainingComputers]

It would be awesome indeed! :)

[@Commsprepper]

I ran the vecgencmd otp_dump | grep 17 command and the return was all ready 302.... Is USB boot now standard with Raspberry PI 3 B+ units?

[@ExplainingComputers]

It is indeed -- you only have to do this with the 3B, not the 3B+.

[@AOBAboOmer]

I have raspberry pi 3 but I can't understand all of code , it is complex 😡😡😡😡😡

[@felipeportela5693]

6 years, I guess you learned it

[@mnikpro]

​@@felipeportela5693I would have...

[@felipeportela5693]

​@@mnikproI made this comment 4 months ago and still learning JS lol

[@mnikpro]

@@felipeportela5693 at least it's not 6 years...

[@felipeportela5693]

​@@mnikpro I'd be so frustrated if after 6 years I was still not able to understand the full code, it is complex and all but 6 years are a lot of time

[@ry_man]

I hope the foundation are planning a Pi 4 for the start of next year! I think the next release will make it so much faster. I wouldn't mind if there was a slight price increase if it ment getting higher performance!

[@freesaxon6835]

I tried this on my raspberry pie, and it baked it (^^) :-) Interesting development thanks

[@ExplainingComputers]

Oh dear! :(

[@figjoy]

Before April I was doing this by editing cmdline.txt on the SD to boot from a USB flash drive, but that no longer seems to work on a fresh install of the latest version of Jessie... I'm now booting to an SSD and running Seafile praying for more memory and USB 3 on the next iteration!

[@JohnSmith-bh4zx]

Hi, would this be possible with the Raspberry Pi 4? If so could you do a video showing how?

[@ExplainingComputers]

Not yet possible on a Pi 4. USB boot is promised for a future update . . . I will certainly cover it in a video when the update is released.

[@Liam-B]

Awesome. Now I can have more storage for my DEC VT520/RPi project. It's called the CreamPi

[@XarilaosXatzivasiliou]

or run berryboot and load any OS from any usb device

[@onnozweers]

Berryboot is awesome. It still needs an SD to boot, though.

[@thomascott7425]

Mister Barnatt, as usual, a great video on a terrific topic. I want to tell you that I look forward to your next postings. Now I can only wait for 2018 for the Pi 4 and hopefully, it will have not only a USB 3 but with luck something faster s well. Thank you. 73

[@odieodie8905]

You I can trust Thanks for all of your insight💡

[@DavidJJJ]

Excellent! So good that we can finally boot from something other than sd!

[@basilsunnyalukka4491]

Love the videos. Why don't you make a video on making a quadcopter using raspberry pi

[@ExplainingComputers]

What a great idea! :)

[@basilsunnyalukka4491]

ExplainingComputers thank you sir. :)

[@basilsunnyalukka4491]

I saw a PDF file based on making it using pi zero. you can Google it if u want it.

[@USMCDAD47]

Why not a video on using a Pi to make a Time Machine?

[@onnozweers]

To build a time machine, you'll need a Raspberry Omega 5729 which would be released in the year 6485. Unfortunately, humanity will have destroyed itself before that time, delaying the release infinitely. They will be available in some parallel universes though.

[@DrRChandra]

Sure, Mr. Barnatt, by default the last 1000 lines of shell history is stored in $HOME/.bash_history . It gets written when the shell is closed. It's also handy to do an incremental search in reverse by typing Ctrl-R then start typing part of the line you want to recall. Once you see the line, any cursor movement key will do, such as Ctrl-A to go to the beginning, Ctrl-E to the end, etc. While still searching for your previous command line, you can type Ctrl-R repeatedly to recall other command lines with the string you typed. Hope that helps.

[@Cardcaptor.Zakura]

What is the SATA adapter you are using, and where can I find it? I need a proper one since my current USB SATA adapter is from an external hard disk.

[@ExplainingComputers]

The one I used came "free" with a Samsung SSD some years ago. Any SATA to USB adapter should work -- the trick, if you are buying one for a Pi, is not spending too much for a USB 3.0 one (which will work, but the Pi only has USB 2.0). So something like this on Amazon (which happens to be USB 3) should be fine: www.amazon.com/Tuscom-Super-Speed-USB-3-0/dp/B01MTCMNAL/ref=sr_1_12?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1502027806&sr=1-12&keywords=usb%2B2.0%2BSATA%2Badapter&th=1 Note that if you want to connect a HDD to a Pi, rather than an SSD, that your adapter will need a means of powering the drive, as a Pi cannot power an HDD, only an SSD.

[@igfoobar]

Another option is to move the root filesystem to USB and leave /boot on the SD card. You can use the smallest card you have, because /boot is only a few hundred megabytes and is only used during boot-up anyway. This method works on any Pi.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Good point. The new Pi 3 B+ and A+ also boot natively from USB (ie they have the setting activated in this video set as standard).

[@TotoFrancey]

I liked this video, but I couldn't help but think that this whole single board computing thing has started to lose its original focus. If Chris hadn't made this video, then I'm sure somebody else would have. When single board computing started, especially with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi line, the intent was to encourage the user to develop applications in which the board could do something besides desktop computing. Given the small size this became much easier than before. What I see happening is the Raspberry Pi line (with the exception of the Raspberry Pi Zero) and other lines of single board computers (they're all guilty here) is that companies are creating devices which are becoming single board desktop or laptop computers. Something to check the Facebook with. The problem is with us, the user. We are just not creative or innovative enough to come up with the multitude of applications the single board computer could be used for. When I studied electronics for a second time in the early 1980's in a community college atmosphere (the first time was in the mid 1950s and it primarily involved fixing vacuum tube televisions and radios) I wrote an assembly language program for the 8088 processor which would run a series of eight traffic lights in a small town. At the time I was blown away with how small yet powerful electronics had become. Today they are so much smaller and so much more powerful, yet in my opinion we could be doing so much more than to use them to communicate or entertain ourselves. In a way I am hoping the next generation of Raspberry Pi doesn't have a USB 3.0 or SATA port onboard. more memory and a stronger processor would be nice and maybe an on/off switch. But if the Raspberry Pi Foundation doesn't put the USB 3.0 or SATA port on then I am sure some other company will. Keep up the good work Chris.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for a great post. You make a really great point. The Pi, and at least some other SBCs, were initially intended to let people experiment, and to do as you say other kinds of computing stuff. But a lot of users now use SBCs for "traditional" purposes. So the SBC world will, I think, split -- into higher end devices that are more like desktop PCs (but also useful for things like robotics), and lower cost devices that maybe people will (or will not!) experiment with for IoT and other purposes. This said, even when set up as a "desktop" PC, the Pi still allows people to experiment with computing in a way they dare not do with their traditional laptop or desktop. And some people here do report using a Pi or similar SBC as a traditional computer. Next week's video may also stir things up at bit, as I am reviewing an UDOOx86 Advanced Plus -- a powerful SBC with a great many operating system and connectivity and boot options . . . and this gets us back into traditional desktop territory, even though that is not (alone) the purpose of the board. :)

[@anullhandle]

An on/off switch would be nice but USB3 a/o SATA and a LAN port that isn't throttled would be nice for say a cheap NAS solution. What do you think a rpi4 should look like, something that encourages more physical computing?

[@alessandrotrezza37]

TotoFrancey just google rpi project and you will be amazed about how many awesome ad various project has been made whit rpi. One of those is also "transform" it to a "desktop" computer. I don't think that is stopping the progress of SBC is the solution of the problem you mentioned. In this moment i can't think a good way to use usb3 or sata in particular project, but I'm sure that many people will do. 👍 You can still buy an Arduino 😉😉

[@jlewwis1995]

ExplainingComputers What are the specs of the Udoo like? Also what are the boot option? Since it's an x86 board (is it actually x86 or is it 64 bit) does it come with Windows built in or does it not come with an os like the pi?

[@doc8125]

I really do not understand the problem ... so what if raspberry PIs are getting more like computers? You still have the ability to tinker with it, but users like me can still use it for media stuff. There is no reason for it to not work for both instences. Me personally would love to see a 3.0 port or maby even a SATA port for me to able to use it for my use case, but i see no reason for that to harm you in any way, since you will still be able to tinker with it all you like

[@Hex-Mas]

This video was very informative. Explaines better then others on youtube. Thanks.

[@VINAYAKTARE0]

For booting for the first time,, sd or usb required ... my query is whether for the next time the sd card will be required for the booting or not ?

[@ExplainingComputers]

No, the SD card is not required for booting on any occasion (if you have a USB device inserted with an OS installed). What you saw int he final segment was a cold boot, without an SD card, and this is how it boots each time. :)

[@thecaptain2281]

This was really cool! Didn't know you had to jump through any hoops to get it booting to USB though.

[@LAHHZE]

Your speed is still bottlenecked by USB 2.0. No point running it from SSD without SATA or PCie port.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Granted, though an SSD is less likely to corrupt than an SD card. More generally, the ability to use a USB thumb drive rather than a micro SD card could be useful on occasion. I just went to the extreme here! :)

[@xWood4000]

He could be running it with USB 3.1 gen 2 if the raspberry pi had it.

[@amshermansen]

As EC points out the reasoning here is more to avoid SD Card wear and eventually death, in exchange for a much more robust drive. Sure the SSD won't run at its peak speeds, but it also won't need an external power supply, which your run of the mill 2,5" Mechanical drive will. But that's easily done if you want to put that in your case.

[@figjoy]

Actually, in my experience, it does need an external power supply. I use a powered hub.

[@amshermansen]

Sounds like the charger you're using for the PI is underdimensioned to give each USB port the amps they need. SSDs can run on single USB2 no problem.

[@briianhebert]

Thank you for the video, great info as always. I too look forward to RasPi having USB 3

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@tractorman7733]

I like your channel !!!

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@stutz1847]

but you still got the SSD-Cache or am i wrong?

[@seans1102]

This is great because it keeps things portable.

[@NullPointer1100]

Now your SSD is limited by the speed of USB2.0.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Indeed it is.

[@jasonlisonbee]

How much can this be mitigated by a compressing file system? Which would be the best option to do so?

[@md_vandenberg]

Alex, I run a USB2 external HDD, which contains my Steam library. It takes about 30 seconds longer for a game to boot up, compared to when that same drive was in my laptop. 30 whole seconds. Yeah, it's terrible. /s

[@USMCDAD47]

I run my pihole with a USB 200Gb drive I salvaged out of a dead laptop...been running like that for months and months...I don't mind it taking a few more seconds to boot.

[@thomascott7425]

I like seeing that someone besides my self still remembers MAX. I feel that tv show was perhaps too far ahead of itself. I feel that the audience could not grasp the concept. IMHO, Cheers.

[@infidelgermany]

This video came just right! I fried my first SD card 2 days ago while playing a browser game for a bit to long...

[@adarshsingh764]

Now I can die in peace.

[@gene4390]

If you did not want to toggle the boot bit. I believe you could also change/point the boot loader on the sdcard to load Rasbian off of the SSD/USB.

[@retrogameplus3838]

Hello good sir! apt-get is now apt I told you in a previous comment! I will start grading you down!!! In all seriousness keep up the good content and thank you

[@ExplainingComputers]

You will have to tell and grade down the Raspberry Pi Foundation too . . .

[@retrogameplus3838]

I know =( It's not a big deal at all and matters very little but for some reason I feel the need to let people know about the change.

[@h311sb311s]

apt actually does a better job I think. apt-get still works but apt is colorized in some areas to help you focus on the what's currently happening, such as the overall download progress for the group of packages being updated; in other words it's more user friendly. Try 'man apt-get' and 'man apt' to see the general differences.

[@gorillaau]

Wayne Dinsmore There is also apitude which is very similar to apt-get and apt (I haven't played with apt though). The trick is that if something isn't installed by defauly, I'm releunctant to learn it. Apt-get is everywhere, right?

[@h311sb311s]

I didn't know about aptitude. The man page says it's a 'high-level interface to the package manager'. I dug a little deeper and it seems to be an interface that uses curses (poor man's GUI), which also explains why the program is so much larger. Time to try something new (maybe after I'm done playing with my new ESP32-WROVER-KIT). The following lists show the various apt. apt-get, and aptitude programs. Take particular note of the symbolic links and also that it implies aptitude is an alternative to apt or apt-get. pi@RPi3-2:~ $ ls -l /usr/bin/apt* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 13832 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 100008 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-cache -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 26092 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-cdrom -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 17848 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-config -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 22060 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-extracttemplates -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 206604 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-ftparchive -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 120428 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-get lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Jul 5 06:36 /usr/bin/aptitude -> /etc/alternatives/aptitude -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1939 Jun 9 2014 /usr/bin/aptitude-create-state-bundle -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3738328 Jun 15 2014 /usr/bin/aptitude-curses -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2850 Jun 9 2014 /usr/bin/aptitude-run-state-bundle -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11740 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-key -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8742 Oct 12 2014 /usr/bin/apt-listchanges -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 42548 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-mark -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 30200 Dec 13 2016 /usr/bin/apt-sortpkgs pi@RPi3-2:~ $ ls /etc/alternatives/aptitude* aptitude aptitude.de.8.gz aptitude.fr.8.gz aptitude.ja.8.gz aptitude.8.gz aptitude.es.8.gz aptitude.gl.8.gz aptitude.pl.8.gz aptitude.cs.8.gz aptitude.fi.8.gz aptitude.it.8.gz pi@RPi3-2:~ $ ls -l /etc/alternatives/aptitude lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Jul 5 06:36 /etc/alternatives/aptitude -> /usr/bin/aptitude-curses

[@perrymcclusky4695]

Cool! That was easy to understand. Thanks! I look forward to whatever you do next week!

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@sidharthcs2110]

Second

[@ExplainingComputers]

Silver. :)

[@mzr1der]

By the time I came to look at this the Raspberry Pi 3B+ was out and the latest Raspbian was released in November 2018. I had been trying to get an old 80GB Intel SSD (the non-cut down version of the 40gB in the video) to be the boot media for an RPi 3B+ for ages. No combination of

[@ExplainingComputers]

You are right, this video is just for the Raspberry Pi 3B, not the 3B+, which has this enabled by default.

[@beans8489]

First

[@sidharthcs2110]

Legitning NNooooooooooooooo

[@beans8489]

sidharth cs Gg :D

[@ExplainingComputers]

Gold Metal to Legitning! :)

[@beans8489]

ExplainingComputers Time to add it to my collection, well its very small.

[@toepunch001]

That's what she said!

[@XenoContact]

I think an external drive connected via the slow(compared to microSD connection) usb interface is best suited for a NAS project-which I am currently working on btw- rather than using it for the OS itself.

[@josecarlosxyz]

this is looking promising, sd cards are very prone to corruption and overheating.

[@NortelGeek]

Thank you for this most informative video, Mr. Barnatt. Always a pleasure!

[@th3l0n3w0lf]

i am from singapore and i must say that is an awesome wallpaper

[@ExplainingComputers]

It is supplied as part of the latest Raspbian image! :)

[@FGQuinto]

exactly what i was looking for!! thanks so much. i worked right along with you and jobs done!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Great to hear!

[@timnixon2889]

I added a SSD (el-cheapo 60GB) and it works great..Even used etcher.. In my case I took my 32GB sd card from the pi with everything I wanted already on it and used win32diskimager to capture it then wrote it using etcher. After boot on the SSD I needed to find how to expand the filesystem to the full 60GB..since raspi-config complained about it not being a sd card.. but I found this on google and it worked great cp /usr/bin/raspi-config ~ sed -i 's/mmcblk0p/sda/' ~/raspi-config sed -i 's/mmcblk0/sda/' ~/raspi-config sudo ~/raspi-config Then under advanced you can expand the file system BTW LOVING YOUR VIDEOS and one 'older' person to another.. been working with computers since the late1970's ;) Think IMSAI-8080

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. Great to hear of your positive SD card to SSD migration.

[@BenMitro]

The capitalised Y in Y/n means that is the default - no need for the "y" entry, just hit enter. Having said that, I like the certainty of hitting "y" too. :) thanks for the info.

[@norcal6181]

Just an FYI, you don't have to use the get in apt-get anymore. You can use the more up to date command which is just 'sudo apt update' and 'sudo apt upgrade'

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, I keep forgetting that. Though "apt-get" has more options (not that I am using them!), so "apt" is not actually a replacement for "apt get", more of an alternative. As I understand it, "apt get" is not being depreciated. But I could be wrong!

[@Oberroxxor]

Booting of USB was possible before. Just more tedious ;) Good that the made this easier!

[@ExplainingComputers]

As far as I am aware it was not possible to fully boot off USB before the Raspberry Pi Foundation made this update. You could install the OS on a USB drive, but you still had to have an SD card in the Pi to get to a boot utility (such as BerryBoot) that then picked up the OS from another media. And that is still the way to go in some situations where you want multibooting.

[@amshermansen]

Yep - It still relied on the SD card for initial bootloading.

[@Huzzahgamers_inc]

Keep in mind that a USB 2.0 connected drive is limited to around 60MBps where as an SDcard is typically limited to around 19MBps. An SSD has far better life expectancy than an SD-Card. No matter the argument, the USB solution is far better than using a sd-card. a nvme would be preferable, but for now, this is an excellent solution.

[@AK-gt8zy]

I love this guy. He explains everything so WELL.

[@vgamesx1]

Neat, I have the same Intel SSD, I bought mine second hand super cheap at about $12.

[@ExplainingComputers]

You got a good deal! :)

[@ninline2000]

Here I am, over 3 years later, googling how to USB boot an Rpi 3 and up pops Explaining Computers. I should have known. Funny thing is, I just installed Raspbian on my 3B + and it is already configured for USB boot from installation.

[@lorderectus1849]

Oooo he’s booting from raspberry pi 3 with ssd!

[@delmonti]

Another well produced & written vid.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks! :)

[@TheSkogemann]

Here is a one-liner if you want to upgrade your pi fully (Or any debian dists) Beware to save all your things before running this as it will reboot with no warning. - apt update && apt upgrade -y && apt-get autoremove -y && reboot

[@tpobrienjr]

And it actually worked! Amazing.

[@rivertees]

Thanks again, the second time today your tutorials have helped me.

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@galihpa]

Hi ExplainingComputers, please do more raspberry pi videos. I really like them.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I hear you, I hear you! :)