Ruddy microSD cards

[Ed P]

Although it is impossible to boot a Pi Zero from SSD you can ‘more or less’ do so with just a shim actually on the SD card.

Choose a 8GB or lower card (tend to be more reliable) and follow the directions given here

[Ed P]

Just to flesh out the topic of using an SSD with the Raspberry Pi3B, there is one critical problem area. The on-board Wi-Fi.

The problems between the on-board Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are well documented with the only solution to using both being to disable the on-board Bluetooth and use a hub version

There is however an additional issue between the Wifi and the SSD which causes frequent Wifi drop-outs. The Pi3B Wifi is bad at the best of times but SSD+Wi-Fi  are just about unworkable. By observation the Wi-Fi drops out as soon as the SSD starts to file manage so it is either i/o or power. I have not found a solution, and in my current construction cannot use a powered hub to test if SSD power drain is the issue. Instead I’m going to use a Homeplug+Ethernet solution.

[Drezha]

At the minute, it’s sat next to the router and therefore wifi isn’t really an issue for it. I’ll bear it in mind if I move it however,

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Author]

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