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In my opinion, Raspberry Pi's main problem has to do with using SD cards, which are prone to errors and corruption. It's a kind of media storage that works best

by Funes- 6y ago

In my opinion, Raspberry Pi's main problem has to do with using SD cards, which are prone to errors and corruption. It's a kind of media storage that works best if it operates more statically--for instance, you read some photos on your camera, remove a few, take some new ones... and that's it for the day. They are not intended to undergo a large number of read/write cycles on a regular basis, and that's what the Raspberry Pi makes them do, using them to run its OS.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
The problem of reliance on an SD card is somewhat less nowadays with the Raspberry Pi 4. Its faster USB3 support allows you to just use the SD card for the /boot partition to boot the system, while you can maintain everything else (root, userspace) on an attached USB drive that can handle heavy reading and writing.
- chabes 6y ago
  You can boot entirely from USB on the Pi 4s now. Don’t even need the microSD for the boot partition.
  - fn1 6y ago
    Booting from USB was possible for the RPI3 as well.
chabes 6y ago
Pi 4s can boot from USB now, as of the Sept 2020 bootloader update. No need for microSD.
- Funes- 6y ago
  No, not only Raspberry Pi 4's. I've had this on my bookmarks for a while, which explains how to boot any Pi (some models differ with regards to the procedure, or the need of an SD card, such as the Raspberry Pi Zero, which still needs one): https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
stambros 6y ago
Lost 2 SD cards that way. It's a relic that should be phased out in favor of NVME or SATA.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  What SD cards did you use? I have seen high endurance ones available.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    These have never failed me: https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/atp/advancedmlc-amlc-microsd-microsdhc-cards https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/atp/advancedm... I even set up a testing rig to do randomized power shut down thousands of times; they didn't fail: https://forums.balena.io/t/raspberry-pi-atp-amlc-microsd-cards-automated-powercycling-tests/4756 https://forums.balena.io/t/raspberry-pi-atp-amlc-microsd-car... Found these via this 2018 HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16777238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16777238
fl0under 6y ago
You can use log2ram [0] to reduce the number of writes to the SD card. That's what I'm doing at the moment and haven't had any problems with my SD card, though it has been in use for less than 6 months so far. I agree though that a SD card is not the best storage option for the OS and would like to move mine over to an nvme drive. [0] https://github.com/azlux/log2ram https://github.com/azlux/log2ram
bityard 6y ago
I read this same comment in every single HN post even tangentially related to the Pi. As others have pointed out, the Pi can run just fine off of USB and the newer ones support it out of the box. I ran my version 1 256MB Raspberry Pi for off an external USB drive. I only had to _boot_ from the SD card. There have also been, for a long time now, SD cards with much better durability than the cheapest ones you can buy on Amazon. I personally look for ones labeled "high-endurance" or for use with dashcams because those are much closer to a proper SSD in terms of wear cycles. I wish the RPi foundation would make it clearer in their documentation and blog posts you're going to have a bad time if you use a generic SD card as if it was a general-purpose hard drive.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  The problem is that getting a good sd card or flash drive is still a roll of the dice - you can't tell if a given device will suit by looking at its specs. eMMCs are made pesirically for this purpose and its a shame there is bo pi model using them
- Funes- 6y ago
  >As others have pointed out, the Pi can run just fine off of USB and the newer ones support it out of the box. I'm fully aware of that. In fact, and ironically enough, I'm one of those people you are referring to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157437 >I wish the RPi foundation would make it clearer in their documentation and blog posts you're going to have a bad time if you use a generic SD card as if it was a general-purpose hard drive. Conversely, I wish they would tell all their approved sellers not to include those "generic" SD cards (Raspbian/RPi OS preinstalled and all) with Pi's.

by Funes- 6y ago

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

The problem of reliance on an SD card is somewhat less nowadays with the Raspberry Pi 4. Its faster USB3 support allows you to just use the SD card for the /boot partition to boot the system, while you can maintain everything else (root, userspace) on an attached USB drive that can handle heavy reading and writing.

chabes 6y ago
You can boot entirely from USB on the Pi 4s now. Don’t even need the microSD for the boot partition.
- fn1 6y ago
  Booting from USB was possible for the RPI3 as well.

chabes 6y ago

Pi 4s can boot from USB now, as of the Sept 2020 bootloader update. No need for microSD.

Funes- 6y ago
No, not only Raspberry Pi 4's. I've had this on my bookmarks for a while, which explains how to boot any Pi (some models differ with regards to the procedure, or the need of an SD card, such as the Raspberry Pi Zero, which still needs one): https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

stambros 6y ago

Lost 2 SD cards that way. It's a relic that should be phased out in favor of NVME or SATA.

CameronNemo 6y ago
What SD cards did you use? I have seen high endurance ones available.
- tpmx 6y ago
  These have never failed me: https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/atp/advancedmlc-amlc-microsd-microsdhc-cards https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/atp/advancedm... I even set up a testing rig to do randomized power shut down thousands of times; they didn't fail: https://forums.balena.io/t/raspberry-pi-atp-amlc-microsd-cards-automated-powercycling-tests/4756 https://forums.balena.io/t/raspberry-pi-atp-amlc-microsd-car... Found these via this 2018 HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16777238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16777238

fl0under 6y ago

You can use log2ram [0] to reduce the number of writes to the SD card. That's what I'm doing at the moment and haven't had any problems with my SD card, though it has been in use for less than 6 months so far. I agree though that a SD card is not the best storage option for the OS and would like to move mine over to an nvme drive. [0] https://github.com/azlux/log2ram https://github.com/azlux/log2ram

bityard 6y ago

I read this same comment in every single HN post even tangentially related to the Pi. As others have pointed out, the Pi can run just fine off of USB and the newer ones support it out of the box. I ran my version 1 256MB Raspberry Pi for off an external USB drive. I only had to _boot_ from the SD card. There have also been, for a long time now, SD cards with much better durability than the cheapest ones you can buy on Amazon. I personally look for ones labeled "high-endurance" or for use with dashcams because those are much closer to a proper SSD in terms of wear cycles. I wish the RPi foundation would make it clearer in their documentation and blog posts you're going to have a bad time if you use a generic SD card as if it was a general-purpose hard drive.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
The problem is that getting a good sd card or flash drive is still a roll of the dice - you can't tell if a given device will suit by looking at its specs. eMMCs are made pesirically for this purpose and its a shame there is bo pi model using them
Funes- 6y ago
>As others have pointed out, the Pi can run just fine off of USB and the newer ones support it out of the box. I'm fully aware of that. In fact, and ironically enough, I'm one of those people you are referring to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157437 >I wish the RPi foundation would make it clearer in their documentation and blog posts you're going to have a bad time if you use a generic SD card as if it was a general-purpose hard drive. Conversely, I wish they would tell all their approved sellers not to include those "generic" SD cards (Raspbian/RPi OS preinstalled and all) with Pi's.