Using your Pi with an SSD (Solid State Drive)

[HawaiianPi]

I have previously posted a review of the X850 mSATA storage expansion board for the Raspberry Pi. It was a compact and elegant solution, but it was also rather expensive for what it is, which is basically a SATA to USB adapter. The X850 is currently $24 on Amazon, and you can get other SATA-USB 3.0 adapters for less than half that (and USB 2.0 adapters for even less). On top of that, the tiny mSATA form factor drives are usually more expensive than the standard 2.5 inch size.

But how would you mount a 2.5 inch drive to a little Raspberry Pi computer? Well today I toyed around with some ideas about that.

I took the top off of the JBtek acrylic case I was using with the X850 system...


...and replaced it (and the X850) with a standard 2.5 inch SSD.


The spacing between the rear standoffs was a near perfect match to the SSD mounting holes, and the M3 standoffs screwed right into the drive! Front mounting holes didn't line up with the front of the case, so it's just resting on the standoffs there. I could drill holes under each front standoff to screw them down, but I don't think it's necessary (it feels very secure the way it is). I used a <$10 SATA-USB 3.0 adapter and a <$40 Silicon Power A55 128GB SSD. The final touch was a wire tie to support the bend in the USB cable and reduce mechanical load on the ports.

This is a nice arrangement. The <$10 SATA to USB adapter does work with pure USB boot on the Pi3B (boot and reboot both work fine), and it's a much less expensive system than the X850. The SSD was $10 less, and the SATA-USB adapter was $15 less, for a total savings of $25. That's more than the price difference between the 128GB and 256GB drives! I could have gotten double the storage and still saved money.

It's not that expensive compared to a good SD card, either. The 128GB SanDisk Ultra A1 micro-SD card is the same price as the SSD here, and the 256GB card is actually much more expensive than the 256GB Silicon Power SSD (nearly double the price).

With the X850 I had to extend the length of the standoffs to make room for the drive. With this arrangement it looks like I could use shorter standoffs, but that would make it harder to connect things to the GPIO header (there's plenty of room with the default 35mm standoffs).

Hmm... and that gives me another idea...

Mount the drive to the bottom of the case instead.


This would allow you to use the top of the case with the fan (which I found too noisy, and unnecessary), or install a HAT, or a small LCD screen, or? In this configuration you have full access to the Pi system board to do whatever you want, while still having an SSD mounted to the computer. Though some might argue that it's actually a computer mounted to a 2.5 inch SSD.

EDIT (11/23/2018):
The ELUTENG adapter has been replaced by a newer model that does not work well (links removed because they are no longer valid).

See the following post for more information.
viewtopic.php?f=63&t=227600

[MacsandaPi]

Given my recent unsuccessful attempts (viewtopic.php?f=28&t=208796) to get my original version Pi2B to run Stretch from an external HD, I'm curious to know if you tried your Pi2B version 1 with the Silicon Power SSD and SATA-USB adapter. Were you able to use that setup successfully with the bootcode.bin method of booting the Pi2B (v.1) to the SSD?

[HawaiianPi]

... I'm curious to know if you tried your Pi2B version 1 with the Silicon Power SSD and SATA-USB adapter. Were you able to use that setup successfully with the bootcode.bin method of booting the Pi2B (v.1) to the SSD?

Yup. That was the exact setup I used when I tried to help you in that other thread. I used a Pi2Bv1.1, the SP 128GB SSD, the ELUTENG USB3 to SATA III Cable and one of the many micro-SD cards scattered around my computer desk.

I wrote the 2018-03-13 Raspbian Stretch Desktop image directly to the SSD using Etcher on my Windows 10 gaming laptop, formatted one of the 16GB micro-SD cards I use for testing with the SD Card Formatter 5 utility from the SD Association (default filesystem for cards under 32GB is FAT32), and copied bootcode.bin from the imaged SSD boot partition to the card.

After that I inserted the SD card into the Pi2Bv1.1, connected the SSD using the ELUTENG adapter, plugged in my Logitech Unifying dongle (for my K400r keyboard), connected the Pi2Bv1.1 to my monitor, and plugged in the power cord. The system booted, resized the rootfs partition, rebooted, and I was at the desktop.

I'm still waiting for an even less expensive SATA-USB 3.0 adapter that looks identical to the ELUTENG, but it's stuck somewhere in limbo between California and Oregon (last tracking update was from March 30 in Fremont, CA, and nothing since then).

EDIT: Links removed because they are no longer valid. The ELUTENG adapter has been replaced by a newer model that does not work as well.

[MacsandaPi]

OK! Thanks for the good information. I thought maybe the SSD required an external power supply for use with the earliest version of Pi2B.

I think I'll order the USB adapter and Silicon Power SSD you've used successfully and give it a go.

[MacsandaPi]

HawaiianPi--This is to report success in getting my Pi 2B (v.1.1) to boot into the external SSD using the bootcode.bin method. I used the same SSD and SATA connector that you identified in your post above. Still don't know why the bootcode.bin approach didn't work with the HDD that I'd been using with Jessie, but there must be something in Stretch that conflicts with that drive. Anyway, I'm now running a BOINC project headlessly in Stretch on the Pi 2B, which was my goal. Thank you once again for all your help!

[HawaiianPi]

Congrats! Glad you got it working.

[timrowledge]

Hmph; I'm sure I 'successfully' posted this yesterday, but never mind.

My new Pi 3B+ was slotted into the X820 board, connected up, and booted straight away. Similarly the other 3B+ booted immediately from the usb->sata external drive. Both, obviously, having been updated & upgraded.

The X820 is part of my slowly congealing idea for a Steampunky desktop Pi; right now it looks rather bare -

IMG_0423.jpg (43.41 KiB) Viewed 100301 times

but you can see the cheap Aliexpress PSU, a small fan, a home-made heatsink and the X820 with King-Dian SSD - oh and the gpio-shutdown connected stutdown/restart button.

The fan is a 12v model running off 5v, so very gentle. The PSU was a whole $6 delivered but we hooked it up to an oscilloscope and under 3A load it was still delivering within 0.02v of the idle output with jitter of 'goodness me, thats quite good'. Excellent value.

[HawaiianPi]

I finally received the $5.75 USB 3.0 SATA III adapter I bought on Amazon from a seller named Grandey, and it works great with USB boot on the Pi3B(+). Cold boot and restart work fine. In the pictures it looks nearly identical to the ELUTENG USB3 to SATA III Cable I discussed in the OP, but the one I received looks slightly different. It has a more rounded shape and a 2.5 inch longer USB cable (9.5 inch vs 7 inch total length).

The ELUTENG USB3 to SATA III Cable uses an ASMedia ASM1153 controller, and the new Grandey uses a JMicron JMS578. It shows up in Windows as a "sobetter Ext SCSI Disk Device" and in Raspbian as Bus 001 Device 005: ID 152d:0578 JMicron Technology Corp. Default firmware version is 2.0.4, so I might try and flash it to a more recent version, but it does work fine as delivered.

I tested the new adapter with the same two SSD models as before (Silicon Power A55 128GB 2.5 inch SATA and MyDigitalSSD 128GB Super Boot 2 mSATA in a 2.5 adapter). No issues booting or restarting with either on my Pi3B or 3B+ models.

One of these days I'll get around to running benchmarks on all this stuff. For now I can give you my subjective impressions. The MyDigitalSSD SB2 is a teeny-tiny bit faster than the SP A55 SSD, and both are very noticeably faster than a SanDisk Ultra A1 32GB micro-SD card. As for the two USB 3.0 SATA III adapters, I can't tell them apart in use (they both work great), but I do prefer the shorter cable of the ELUTENG USB3 to SATA III adapter (less clutter hanging off the side of my Pi).

With the "Grandey hot selling USB 3.0 to 2.5in SATA 3 Hard Drive Adapter Cable" and the Silicon Power A55 128GB 2.5 inch SSD you can get your Pi up and running from an SSD for well under fifty bucks (price at time of post was $5.75 and $38.99, for a total of $44.74), which is cheaper than some 128GB micro-SD cards. Just be prepared to wait a few weeks for the Grandey adapter, because it ships from China.

EDIT:
I posted a positive review of the Grandey USB-SATA adapter on Amazon, and now the price has jumped up to $7.75. Coincidence? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was a great deal and worth the wait for $5.75, but at $7.75 I'd just spend a little more for the ELUTENG adapter with 2-day Prime shipping. It'll still set you back less than fifty bucks (ELUTENG USB-SATA = $9.96 + $38.99 for the SSD = $48.95).

EDIT: Links removed because they are no longer valid. The ELUTENG adapter has been replaced by a newer model that does not work as well.

[fanoush]

Default firmware version is 2.0.4, so I might try and flash it to a more recent version, but it does work fine as delivered.

Beware with flashing. I tried to flash my JMS578 based M.2 adapter with the firmware from ODROID thread and the flash worked but the board is dead now (it was cheap and I got three of them so no big deal). I suppose it may be related to self powered vs bus powered difference explained here https://forum.armbian.com/topic/3317-or ... ment-43735 as I flashed version 0.1.x while my previous version was 0.2.0.4 (i.e. bus powered). So i guess my board now thinks it is self powered so it cuts itself from bus power after inserting it(?) I plan to recover it by reflashing backup firmware to on board SPI FLASH but did not get to it so far. Otherwise the adapter is really great and works just fine with USB boot, I am very happy with it.

[jmmec]

Thank you for your very detailed & informative posts.

Now that you've had your setup running for a few weeks, how reliable are you finding boot / reboot ?

I'm interested in booting a Pi3 from SSD to (hopefully) have better reliability than the original SD card boot: the Pi is located in a remote location and it's not fun when the SD goes south during power outages or other reasons like the current phase of the moon.

I'm considering your setup, or perhaps swapping the Silicon Power 128GB SSD with a slightly more expensive SanDisk 120GB SSD (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F9 ... PDKIKX0DER) since I tend to have good luck with SanDisk products. But so far I haven't come across any reports about booting from a SanDisk SSD so that may sway me toward the SP that you settled on.

Appreciate any advice!

[k-pi]

Obviously, not all SSD draw the same amount of power - mine won't run from a RPi3B powered by the official 2.5A supply.
(Verbatim 64GB)
(Haven't tried it with my RPi3B+ as that alone draws more power than the RPi3B.)

I have to use a powered USB hub, & even then I get the lightning flash occasionally, such as when I go online, & when I change pages, but other than that, it seems to work OK, & is much faster than a pendrive.

(Presently working on booting from a self powered HDD, that seems to have cured the occasional lightning bolt, at the cost of another power supply.)

[HawaiianPi]

I would think the SSD isn't as important as the SATA-USB adapter, as far as booting is concerned. The Pi3 bootloader is not compatible with all USB mass storage devices, so if there is a problem it will most likely be with the part that sits between the SSD and the Pi USB port. The original X850 v1.2 mSATA storage expansion board is a prime example. With no SD card it cold booted perfectly (not a single failure in my testing), but restarts were unreliable. I tried mine with /boot on the micro SD card and the root OS on the SSD and that worked, so I was okay with that.

However, the X850 won't fit in my new favorite case (Flirc) and I started looking for other options.

Both the ELUTENG and Grandey SATA3-USB3 adapters have worked perfectly for me. No problem with cold boot or reboot with either SSD. I also have a ELUTENG mSATA USB 3.0 external enclosure that I have tested on my 3B+ (cold boot/reboot works), and a Sabrent SATA3-USB3 cable that worked fine on my Pi3B (cold boot and reboot), but I prefer the shorter USB cable on the ELUTENG and Grandey adapters (less wire clutter).

Another potential problem with these inexpensive parts is that they could change at any time. Often the same seller will have several different products sold as the same thing. I suspect this is the case with the Grandey adapter, because the picture doesn't match the product I received. The Sabrent and ELUTENG products are branded, so those are probably a safer bet than the Grandey (which is completely generic).

So, assuming you receive the same product I did, I would think a SanDisk SSD would work fine (but see below).

Obviously, not all SSD draw the same amount of power - mine won't run from a RPi3B powered by the official 2.5A supply.
(Verbatim 64GB)

This makes no sense to me.

The Pi3 USB ports can output up to 1.2A with no per-port limits. That should be enough to power up any portable storage device.

Do you have any other power hungry devices attached to your Pi3B?

I have to use a powered USB hub, & even then I get the lightning flash occasionally, such as when I go online, & when I change pages, but other than that, it seems to work OK, & is much faster than a pendrive.

A powered USB 2.0 hub would only supply 500mA per port, and if that's enough the drive should work when powered directly from the Pi3B.

A powered USB 3.0 hub should provide up to 900mA per port, which is still less than the 1.2A of the Pi3B, so again, unless you have another power hungry device, the drive should work when connected directly to the Pi3B.

I suspect something else is going on with your Verbatim SSD.

[k-pi]

The only difference, other than brand of SSD, is my USB cable is not the same as yours - I guess that could be the problem, it's just one I got off the internet to try out. (I only had a keyboard & mouse plugged in when I tried mine.)

I just thought I'd mention my SSD experience.

I'm liking how my other two are performing with their self powered drives.

[jmmec]

Thanks very much for the responses! I'll give this a shot in the next few weeks....

[hal8000]

Can you post results of hdparm please?

On my Pi Model2 with an SATA to USB adapter I get about 30Mbps

osmc@osmc:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 770 MB in 2.00 seconds = 384.63 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 90 MB in 3.04 seconds = 29.62 MB/sec

As far as I know the USB bus is split between the USB ports and ethernert port so throughput from a SSD drive may not be any
faster than an ordinary drive. However you wont get any annoying hard drive noise.
There was a post some time ago about USB speed:

viewtopic.php?t=132461

It will be interesting to see your results.

[HawaiianPi]

Can you post results of hdparm please?

On my Pi Model2 with an SATA to USB adapter I get about 30Mbps

osmc@osmc:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 770 MB in 2.00 seconds = 384.63 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 90 MB in 3.04 seconds = 29.62 MB/sec
...
It will be interesting to see your results.

MyDigitalSSD Super Boot 2 mSATA SSD (128GB) in ELUTENG USB 3.0 enclosure.

Code: Select all

~ $ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   1584 MB in  2.00 seconds = 792.29 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 128 MB in  3.03 seconds =  42.27 MB/sec
 

Tested via SSH on a Pi3B+ with Raspbian Stretch Desktop (yes, I know I need to dust).

SB2_hdparm.jpg (91.68 KiB) Viewed 99495 times

For comparison, on the same computer with a 32GB SanDisk Ultra A1 card I get,

Code: Select all

~ $ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/mmcblk0

/dev/mmcblk0:
 Timing cached reads:   1490 MB in  2.00 seconds = 744.55 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  68 MB in  3.00 seconds =  22.65 MB/sec
 

This is with no overclocking of the SD card subsystem (default settings).

Additional info.

The other Pi3B+ USB ports are populated with a USB 2.0 micro SD card reader (containing a Samsung 32GB EVO+ used for backups), a Logitech Unifying dongle and a DROK USB power meter. The Pi3B+ was connected to my network via 2.4GHz WiFi. The ELUTENG USB 3.0 mSATA enclosure uses a JMicron 578 controller. The Pi3B+ is connect to the monitor with an HDMI cable (I can switch monitor inputs and use my Logitech K400r keyboard with trackpad to interact directly with the Raspberry Pi Desktop), but hdparm doesn't require a GUI so SSH was used for the test.

[fritserasmus]

Hmph; I'm sure I 'successfully' posted this yesterday, but never mind.

My new Pi 3B+ was slotted into the X820 board, connected up, and booted straight away. Similarly the other 3B+ booted immediately from the usb->sata external drive. Both, obviously, having been updated & upgraded.

The X820 is part of my slowly congealing idea for a Steampunky desktop Pi; right now it looks rather bare -
IMG_0423.jpg
but you can see the cheap Aliexpress PSU, a small fan, a home-made heatsink and the X820 with King-Dian SSD - oh and the gpio-shutdown connected stutdown/restart button.

The fan is a 12v model running off 5v, so very gentle. The PSU was a whole $6 delivered but we hooked it up to an oscilloscope and under 3A load it was still delivering within 0.02v of the idle output with jitter of 'goodness me, thats quite good'. Excellent value.

I made a image of my existing SD card using Win32diskImager.
I then tried to flash the image to my 160Gb SSD drive from Windows by using a docking station for the SSD, but get an error message:
"The writer process ended unexpectedly. Please try again, and contact the Etcher team if the problem persists"
Oh BTW, I did tick the "Use unsafe" box

How big SSD did you use?

[timrowledge]

MY SSD is a dirt-cheap KingDian 32Gb unit

[k-pi]

I made a image of my existing SD card using Win32diskImager.
I then tried to flash the image to my 160Gb SSD drive from Windows by using a docking station for the SSD, but get an error message:
"The writer process ended unexpectedly. Please try again, and contact the Etcher team if the problem persists"
Oh BTW, I did tick the "Use unsafe" box

How big SSD did you use?

I use a fresh image on my disks, or I use the Raspbian card copier to clone it to a disk, both worked for me.

(I have a 64GB SSD, run from a powered USB hub which also powers my RPi3B, plus a 160GB HDD, & another 500GB HDD self powered drives attached to another RPi3B & a RPi3B+.)

[HawaiianPi]

[I made a image of my existing SD card using Win32diskImager.

If you are using the Desktop version of Raspbian, just use the SD Card Copier utility to clone the SD card to your SSD. If you are using a version of Raspbian that was released less than a year ago it should boot right up.

I then tried to flash the image to my 160Gb SSD drive from Windows by using a docking station for the SSD, but get an error message:
"The writer process ended unexpectedly. Please try again, and contact the Etcher team if the problem persists"
Oh BTW, I did tick the "Use unsafe" box

And did you retry the operation?

How big SSD did you use?

Both SSD models I use are 128GB (MyDigitalSSD Super Boot 2 mSATA and a Silicon Power A55 2.5 inch SATA SSD).

[jmmec]

Hi,

I mentioned in my previous reply that I'd try booting a Pi3B (not a Pi3B+) off SSD, so I finally got a chance and here is a brief follow-up:

I already had a Pi3B powered by a Cana Kit 5V / 2.5A power supply (Model #DCAR-052A5) which runs my favorite Arch Linux ARM distribution, so I only needed to pick up the following components:

SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB Solid State Drive - SDSSDA-120G-G26

ELUTENG USB3 to SATA III Cable 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter

Sabrent USB 3.0 to SSD / 2.5-Inch SATA Hard Drive Adapter

I decided to buy two different suggested SATA / USB adapters in case one didn't work.

So far I've only done some quick tests, and here are my results with the two adapters:

• Sabrent: Interestingly, I could not get the Pi to boot when using this adapter, even when setting "program_usb_boot_timeout=1" in "config.txt". The adapter otherwise works fine: I used it a number of times for connecting the SSD to my desktop for installing Arch, file edits, etc... I actually prefer it since it has a disk activity light built into it.
• Eluteng: The Pi boots with (and without) "program_usb_boot_timeout=1" when using the Eluteng adapter. It just works!

There are some quirks, though I doubt this has anything to do with the Eluteng adapter:

• I also have a SanDisk 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive: the Pi will not boot off SSD if the flash drive is also plugged in. The Pi3 boots fine if I swap back in the SD card + the flash drive.
• Out of curiosity, I grabbed an externally powered USB 2.0 hub and plugged the flash drive into it, and then connected the hub to the Pi: the Pi would not boot off SSD. If I then unplug the flash drive from the hub, while keeping the hub connected to the Pi, then the Pi will boot off SSD. Weird.
• I also have a Sierra Wireless MC7455 enclosed in a case with a USB 2.0 interface: plugging this directly into the Pi, along with the SSD for boot, poses no problems at all and the Pi and MC7455 boot just fine. This is the configuration I really need to work.
• Of course plugging in the flash drive into the Pi after it boots off SSD works just fine.

At least for my setup, the Eluteng adapter is the way to go with the SanDisk SSD.

Thanks again for all the helpful information in this post!

[davidcoton]

The Pi boots with (and without) "program_usb_boot_timeout=1"

If you have booted once with that parameter, the OTP bit is set and the longer timeout is permanent. You can only test booting with the shorter timeout on a Pi that has NEVER been booted with program_usb_boot_timeout=1.

[jmmec]

Ah, gotcha....

I see that the delayed boot setting is now permanent, which is OK.

Code: Select all

pi@pi_staging:~ $ vcgencmd otp_dump | grep 66
66:01009daa

My post is partially incorrect about the Eluteng: since I set "program_usb_boot_timeout=1" while messing around with the Sabrent, then my subsequent brief tests with the Eluteng were also using the delayed boot. I don't know if the Eluteng would have worked with the SanDisk SSD with the regular / short boot delay, but it works fine with the delayed boot.

Thanks

[WECole]

I saw what all of you were doing and decided to try using an SSD myself, for storing movies to watch on Kodi. I just bought a Raspberry Pi 3 b+ and have a 240 GB Intel 540s series SSD to experiment with. I am currently using the USB/SATA adapter from an old Seagate GoFlex 2.5" USB hard drive as my USB/Sata adapter (see pic). Once I got the SSD reformatted and everything hooked up, the PI could read the drive but the performance wasn't stable because of power issues. (I had the drive plugged directly into the Pi's USB ports.) I plugged a powered USB hub into the Pi and moved the SSD to that and now everything seems stable and is running like a champ. I've got the Eluteng USB/SATA adapter ordered as well, so I'll update this post later on if it seems to improve performance directly thru the Pi, even though I expect the power issue is the drive, not the adapter.

[mhristau]

Just ordered a MyDigitalSSD Super Boot 2 (SB2) SATA III (6G) SSD (128GB (120GB), mSATA (50MM))
Has anyone successfully paired the SSD with:

ELUTENG USB3 External Hard Drive Enclosure Clear 2.5 SATA to USB3 UASP Portable SSD Hard Drive Case Max 2T HDD Tool-Free Transparent for Samsung WD Intel

??

Thanks!