[chbot] [OT] SSD for a Pi 400.

[Chris Hellyar]

Afternoon,

The limitation on performance for the MicroSD is capped by the (SPI?) 
bus speed into the at about ~20MB/s tops, and it's got a queue depth of 
one, so quite limited IOPs.

If you want to make the MicroSD go faster you could over-clock the bus 
for it on the Pi3, which worked with good MicroSD cards. I've not seen 
mention of it for the Pi4 but you're far better off to set up USB mass 
storage boot to a USB 3.0 connected SSD.

I've been running a 'pi cluster' for a few months using Pi 4's USB 
booting off Kingston A400 SATA SSDs using Startech USB adaptors and they 
perform really well.

Just be aware that some USB adaptors will not mass-storage boot on the 
Pi4..  Pretty much anything works on the Pi3 from my messing around over 
the last couple of years.

- Chris H.



On 24/01/21 11:17 am, Henri Shustak wrote:
> Yes, this seems like a great way to speed up the IOPS and throughput.
>
> If you are looking to make it faster with an SD card some of the newer faster microSD cards are fast but not as fast as this SSD.
>
> Henri
>
>> On 21/01/2021, at 11:25 AM, hamster <hamster at snap.net.nz> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Quentin,
>>
>>
>> It's a "Transcend ESD230C 240GB USB Type-C Portable SSD" from PBTech
>>
>> The processes is very simple - just 'dd' the standard Pi microSD image over it, plug it into the Pi and switch it on. Too easy!
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>> On 21.01.2021 08:47, Quentin McDonald wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Mike,
>>>   
>>> Would you mind letting us know what SSD you ended up getting and from where? I've looked into this briefly and I couldn't seem to figure out how to find one of the Pi compatible ones known to work.
>>>   
>>> Thanks,
>>>   
>>> Quentin
>>>
>>>   
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