[arm-allstar] Boot from Raspberry Pi 3B+ USB Stick

[David McGough]

Jeff,

I don't recommend trying to use a USB storage device for booting and daily
operations for a RPi3B+.  If you're having SD card reliability issues and
you're using high quality SD cards, you've got a weak power supply
problem.

I've got a whole fleet of RPi systems installed, all with Sandisk SD
cards, and zero issues. Many of these systems have been installed for
years.  Here are uptimes right this minute for 2 RPi3B+ boards sitting
1700 feet up a tall TV tower; both using Sandisk 16GB SD cards:

[root at repeater-146820 ~]# uptime
 17:47:22 up 337 days,  1:51,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

[root at repeater-444850 ~]# uptime
 17:47:51 up 337 days,  1:45,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00

Here are the cards I'm using:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MR6K8PD/


73, David KB4FXC



On Fri, 1 Jan 2021, "Jeff Hochberg via ARM-allstar" wrote:

> I'd much rather run the Pi off USB storage as I've found it to be much more
> reliable than running off an SD card.
> 
> Has anyone been able to install the RPI image then boot from a USB stick
> instead of SD card?
> 
> I installed the 1.6 image (via dd) to both an SD card and a USB stick.
> 
> I also installed Raspberry Pi OS to a DIFFERENT SD card and DIFFERENT USB
> stick. I was able to confirm that the Pi 3B+ will boot from the USB stick
> running Raspberry Pi OS.
> 
> I found some articles that cover making a couple of changes to cmdline.txt
> (change root to root=/devsda2) and /etc/fstab (change boot to /dev/sda1),
> but the Pi simply won't boot.
> 
> I do see a flurry of disk activity on the USB stick at first, then the
> green LED on the Pi flashes 2 or 3 times in rapid succession, followed by a
> delay, followed by flashing 2 or 3 times in rapid succession (and so on).
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> ***************************************************
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> ***************************************************
> 
> Jeff Hochberg
> W4JEW
> Atlanta, GA
> 404-304-4575
> jeff at w4jew.com
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