What ssd drive are you using?

[wattaman]

So my 'project' is wordpress shop, and the problem is that the sdcard delivered with the Rpi 4 (panasonic, I believe) died, no computer/mobile even sees it when inserted in.
I am looking to buy a cheap/small ssd, but there are so many topics about booting from and using a ssd instead of the sdcard that I'm lost and don't know who to believe now.
From your experience, what ssd works with Rpi 4 to boot from instead of the sdcard? I'd need a brand name and a model, please.

[kerry_s]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FY ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088F ... UTF8&psc=1

my ssd & adapter

i'm currently back to sd card at the moment, my son snagged it for gaming, said he needed more space.
i have a 4tb on order for xmas for him, it'll be nice to get back to ssd.

[Mark_F]

I have three Pi's booting from SSD. A Pi 4GB and 1GB and a P400. I use a Seagete 1TB, a 1TB Toshiba and a 500GB Sandisk. All work faultlessly. https://jandmf.com/index.php/radio-and-raspberry-pi/

[FTrevorGowen]

FWIW, These SSD's and Adapters are what I'm currently (12/2020) using:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... ves70.html
and I'm booting my P400 from the UGREEN/YUCUN combo.:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... _Converter
(and have recently acquired a second UGREEN adapter which still uses the ASMedia chipset)
You may also find these "simple tests" (and the forum thread referred to therein) of interest:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... sting.html
Trev.

[W. H. Heydt]

What is more important that the SSD itself, is what the USB adapter is. There's no point in going faster than SATA III, as that's faster than USB 3.

I Have three Pi4B4s, each running from a 120GB HP S600 SSD. The critical criterion for selection was low power requirements.

[bassamanator]

So my 'project' is wordpress shop, and the problem is that the sdcard delivered with the Rpi 4 (panasonic, I believe) died, no computer/mobile even sees it when inserted in.
I am looking to buy a cheap/small ssd, but there are so many topics about booting from and using a ssd instead of the sdcard that I'm lost and don't know who to believe now.
From your experience, what ssd works with Rpi 4 to boot from instead of the sdcard? I'd need a brand name and a model, please.

Booting from SSD is no longer an issue on RPI. If you really need an SSD for the Pi then I would recommend a Crucial MX500 or a WD Blue, however, any SSD will do.

Myself, I use a Lexar MicroSD card. I've had it since the end of June and it has never gotten corrupted. Compare that to my Samsung Evo Select that I needed to reimage every 2-3 weeks or so.

[pidd]

Kingston A400 series with Eluteng USB3/SATA adapters, so impressed with the Kingston's I just carried on buying more.

I might be getting different SATA adpators soon if I can get them in the UK that have the lead coming out at right angles which would be more convenient for some of my applications.

[jbudd]

There's lots of info on good/bad SSDs and adapters at https://jamesachambers.com/new-raspberr ... boot-guide

From my experience I use a Western Digital Green M.2-2280 120GB SATA III SSD in an ORICO M2PF-C3 enclosure.
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital- ... B01M2WYNP2
https://www.orico.cc/us/product/detail/7212.html

[FTrevorGowen]

Kingston A400 series with Eluteng USB3/SATA adapters, so impressed with the Kingston's I just carried on buying more.

I might be getting different SATA adpators soon if I can get them in the UK that have the lead coming out at right angles which would be more convenient for some of my applications.

Something like the UGREEN device I mentioned in my previous post perhaps? https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... _Converter
Trev.

[pidd]

Kingston A400 series with Eluteng USB3/SATA adapters, so impressed with the Kingston's I just carried on buying more.

I might be getting different SATA adpators soon if I can get them in the UK that have the lead coming out at right angles which would be more convenient for some of my applications.

Something like the UGREEN device I mentioned in my previous post perhaps? https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... _Converter
Trev.

Bought, £7.59 on amazon, thanks for the reminder.

[Puffergas]

I use a Green Western Digital and the Eluteng adapter. Trim seems to work. I boot from the SD card.

[2badmice]

I'm not, should I be?

SD Cards in 3 Pi's 2 from 2016 one from 2020

[bjtheone]

Definitely makes it faster, especially if you are using it as a desktop. 3b+ quickly descends into swapping hell running from a SD card. Is useable with a SSD and a big swapfile. With the larger ram sizes (4 or 8 GB) the 4B's perform better off an SD, as they don't end up thrashing so much. Still run better off a SSD though.

Especially at the larger sizes (128 GB and up), the price may be cheaper to go SSD than SD, and it is both faster and more durable.

I also have been very happy with the Kingston A400 series. Cheap and so far reliable.

[philrandal]

Pi 4, WD Blue SSD, iitrust USB-3 to SATA adapter

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N2JIQR7

With the udev tweak for TRIM and asmedia controllers.

Phil

[wattaman]

Thank you all for the suggestions.
I've chosen Trevor's because it is cheap enough and I've managed to do the sdcard > ssd transfer/boot properly following this tutorial https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/boo ... y-pi-4-usb
Below are my hardware additions, with the price as per today 15/12/2020:

ssd.png (93.54 KiB) Viewed 485 times

I'm not too interested in the highest speeds, and most likely there are other drives/cables out there much more expensive/performant. But right now it seems to be working fine, and if the ssd is more reliable than the card, then it is fine with me

[rpdom]

Thank you all for the suggestions.
I've chosen Trevor's because it is cheap enough and I've managed to do the sdcard > ssd transfer/boot properly following this tutorial https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/boo ... y-pi-4-usb

I've been using a Yucun 60GB R580 SSD with some of my Pis. It seems well made for a cheap one.

I haven't tried that Ugreen USB-SATA adaptor yet though. It looks like a good price.

Once thing I have noticed is that different adaptors report different capacities for the same drives.
For example, one Yucun 60GB drive shows a capacity of 117,231,408 sectors on a JMicron JMS567 adaptor, 117,231,406 sectors on a Super Top M6116 adaptor, 117,227,520 sectors on a Seagate adaptor and 117,231,404 sectors on a Genesys Logic adaptor. This could possibly lead to errors if the disk is partitioned on one adaptor, then used on another, unless some space is left at the end of the drive.

Does anyone know why this is the case?

[FTrevorGowen]

Thank you all for the suggestions.
I've chosen Trevor's because it is cheap enough and I've managed to do the sdcard > ssd transfer/boot properly following this tutorial https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/boo ... y-pi-4-usb

I've been using a Yucun 60GB R580 SSD with some of my Pis. It seems well made for a cheap one.

I haven't tried that Ugreen USB-SATA adaptor yet though. It looks like a good price.

Once thing I have noticed is that different adaptors report different capacities for the same drives.
For example, one Yucun 60GB drive shows a capacity of 117,231,408 sectors on a JMicron JMS567 adaptor, 117,231,406 sectors on a Super Top M6116 adaptor, 117,227,520 sectors on a Seagate adaptor and 117,231,404 sectors on a Genesys Logic adaptor. This could possibly lead to errors if the disk is partitioned on one adaptor, then used on another, unless some space is left at the end of the drive.

Does anyone know why this is the case?

What are you using to "report with"? I'm using (Gnome?) "Disks" GUI utility** and, whilst it reports more info. for the Yucun SSD with the UGREEN adapter vs. a (JMicron - based) Eluteng one, the sizes are the same:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... R570_120GB
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... _Converter
Trev.
**[Edit] gnome-disk-utility 3.30.2-3

[rpdom]

What are you using to "report with"? I'm using (Gnome?) "Disks" GUI utility** and, whilst it reports more info. for the Yucun SSD with the UGREEN adapter vs. a (JMicron - based) Eluteng one, the sizes are the same:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... R570_120GB
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... _Converter
Trev.
**[Edit] gnome-disk-utility 3.30.2-3

I'm just using fdisk to see the available capacity.

Here's some values from the adaptors I have to hand. I can't use my Eluteng one as that's in use right now.

Code: Select all

Bus 001 Device 012: ID 05e3:0718 Genesys Logic, Inc. IDE/SATA Adapter
Disk /dev/sda: 55.9 GiB, 60022478848 bytes, 117231404 sectors

Bus 001 Device 013: ID 152d:0578 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JMS567 SATA 6Gb/s bridge
Disk /dev/sda: 55.9 GiB, 60022480896 bytes, 117231408 sectors

Bus 001 Device 015: ID 14cd:6116 Super Top M6116 SATA Bridge
Disk /dev/sda: 55.9 GiB, 60022479872 bytes, 117231406 sectors

Bus 001 Device 017: ID 0bc2:231a Seagate RSS LLC Expansion Portable
Disk /dev/sda: 55.9 GiB, 60022480384 bytes, 117231407 sectors

Bus 001 Device 020: ID 152d:2338 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JM20337 Hi-Speed USB to SATA & PATA Combo Bridge
Disk /dev/sda: 55.9 GiB, 60022480896 bytes, 117231408 sectors

A mix of USB2 and USB3 adaptors. All with the same SSD on a Pi 3B running Raspi OS 64-bit (although tests on other Pis and PCs show the same results).

[edit] what is interesting is that I used a different Seagate adaptor to last time and it's given a different value. Identical adaptor. Maybe I read the values wrong last time. Dunno,

[brainsys]

I have bought four Eluteng adaptors from Amazon. The first three were fine. The last repeat order had JMicron interface that needed quirks to boot. So not all Eluteng adaptors are equal. Do check. My SSDs:

* 1TB Curucial MX500 RPi4(8GB) RPi-OS 64bit lite
* 480GB Kingston A400 RPi4(4GB) RPi-OS 64bit lite
* 120GB Kingston A400 RPi4(4GB) RPi-OS 32bit desktop
* 120GB Sandisk Plus RPi4(4GB) RPi-OS 32bit desktop

No issues so far. The Crucial/RPi4(8GB) is the sweetest combo running an ISPConfig server effortlessly.

[BRX7]

I have bought four Eluteng adaptors from Amazon. The first three were fine. The last repeat order had JMicron interface that needed quirks to boot. So not all Eluteng adaptors are equal. Do check. My SSDs:

* 1TB Curucial MX500 RPi4(8GB) RPi-OS 64bit lite
* 480GB Kingston A400 RPi4(4GB) RPi-OS 64bit lite
* 120GB Kingston A400 RPi4(4GB) RPi-OS 32bit desktop
* 120GB Sandisk Plus RPi4(4GB) RPi-OS 32bit desktop

No issues so far. The Crucial/RPi4(8GB) is the sweetest combo running an ISPConfig server effortlessly.

Ive had bad luck, bought an eluteng from amazon uk, but no luck with boot up so I guess its changed chipset.

[pidd]

Quite a few adaptors on eBay, Amazon etc state UAS or UASP on their adverts which is what we need.

[echmain]

Inland 120gb ssd
Inland usb 3 enclosure

$20 total at the time.

Inland is the store brand of Microcenter.