3 ms·
Is it possible for the rPi to boot from a USB device? One solution would be to hook it up to a $20 32GB SSD drive instead of relying on an SD card.
by copperx 9y ago
Is it possible for the rPi to boot from a USB device? One solution would be to hook it up to a $20 32GB SSD drive instead of relying on an SD card.
- wolrah 9y agoDepends on the model, or actually technically it depends on the bootcode but which version is preloaded depends on the model. The brand new Pi 3B+ ships with the latest bootcode and will boot from USB mass storage or PXE by default. Their PXE is a bit nonstandard but it's close enough that anyone who's PXE booted a PC will understand it. The older Pi 3 supports USB and PXE booting, but has those modes disabled by default. There's a bit you can set in one-time programmable memory to enable it permanently. PXE booting has some quirks in this mode and doesn't get along with switches that take more than a second or so to activate ports. Earlier models do not support anything but SD on their stock bootcode. In all cases, a SD card containing nothing but the latest bootcode can be inserted which brings the new features to the older models, allowing them to boot the rest of the OS from whatever.
- ygra 9y agoAt least for the older models you still needed the card, but only for a marker that tells the Pi to boot from USB. I've been using that setup with Kodi/OSMC with a Pi 2 since USB is faster than the SD card.