Raspberry and SSD

Last Updated or created 2022-10-05

I had a crash recently on one of my raspberry-pi’s ..
SDcard failure, they are not made for a lot of write actions.
In the past i’ve changed some images to read only and with a r/w overlay.
Also tmp filesystems in memory .. all not ideal.

So i’ve started to make every RPi ssd bootable.

I’ve got several ssd already from other projects.
Sata to USB adaptors are cheap, only a few euro’s.

Steps to take:

  • Download Raspberry Pi Imager tool
  • Choose OS > Misc Utility Images > Bootloader > USB Boot
  • Select storage and write to a temporary sd-card (Not needed any more after flashing for normal operations)
  • Boot USB with this Micro-SDcard .. i didn’t have a screen connected .. So i just waited a few minutes
  • While i was waiting i wrote a OS image to the SSD using the same imager tool
  • Choose OS > select sata/ssd drive
  • Change options (cog), enable ssh, choose hostname and set password
  • Write to drive
  • Remove sdcard from RPi attach ssd/sata and boot

My 3D printed sdcard case, luckily there was still one in there (32GB kindda big, but it was only for temporary use .. 16GB was broken ..

So .. without attaching a screen or keyboard, just a network cable. I have a running OS on a RPi from SSD