Boot: Micro SD vs USB stick vs USB SSD

  • I'm on the final stage of my conversion to RPi4. I've just tried booting from a memory stick. The Sandisk 32GB Ultra (usb 3.0) just kept blinking at me, a non name 16GB (usb 2.0) worked but took an age to create the file system on the Pi.

    I'm undecided whether to go for a 128GB Micro SD, a 128GB memory stick or a "proper" 128GB SSD. My configuration will be one of those, a Haupage dual TV tuner, a 6TB powered drive for movies, a micro keyboard and wired LAN.

    The only reason I'm looking at 128GB is for storing recordings until either watched and dumped or watched and transferred to the 6TB drive.

    Any suggestions for the boot device? I seem to recall reading somewhere that Sandisk gave problems, if that's so any brands recommended? Final point: whatever I buy I'll be getting 2 so I can clone it when everything's set up and working!

  • If you are going to store recordings on the boot drive then I would go for a USB SSD. SD and USB drives aren't designed for high volumes of writes and will eventually fail.