RPi4 - SSD as boot medium for Libreelec- not working

    Hello,

    my plan: to connect my SSD (Samsung EVO 870) with Libreelec 10.04 image on it via SATA adapter to the USB port of my Raspberry Pi 4 and use the SSD as boot medium.

    Unfortunately this does not work, nothing is displayed on the TV.

    Can anyone help me?

    That's what putty told me on blkid... and I have no idea what it means...

    /dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL_FATBOOT="LIBREELEC" LABEL="LIBREELEC" UUID="0701-4124" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="505e32d8-01"

    /dev/mmcblk0p2: LABEL="STORAGE" UUID="783cd4a2-fc53-4b6d-a6aa-a7741a567f68" BLOCK_SIZE="1024" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="505e32d8-02"

    /dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"

    /dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL_FATBOOT="LIBREELEC" LABEL="LIBREELEC" UUID="0701-4124" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="505e32d8-01"

    /dev/sda2: LABEL="STORAGE" UUID="783cd4a2-fc53-4b6d-a6aa-a7741a567f68" BLOCK_SIZE="1024" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="505e32d8-02"

    Ok, maybe an adapter issue, found this thread:

    Thread

    Pi 4 not wanting to boot LibreElec from SSD

    Hi Community,

    I tried writing LibreElec to a SATA SSD using the usb sd writer, and connected it to my pi via a usb 3.0 to sata adapter.

    The pi doesn't want to boot the LibreElec install, despite me writing the usb boot firmware, and the Pi managing to boot other OSs from the SATA SSD just fine.

    Does LibreElec support being booted from an SSD on a Pi 4?

    Thanks.
    tracee_savlov
    January 26, 2022 at 1:33 PM

    If you boot from a MicroSD card and have a look in Settings|LibreElec is your firmware up to date?

    I used balenaEtcher on Windows to write the image to an SSD and my RPi4 booted from it without problems.

    Quote from kosmonaut_75

    Hello,

    my plan: to connect my SSD (Samsung EVO 870) with Libreelec 10.04 image on it via SATA adapter to the USB port of my Raspberry Pi 4 and use the SSD as boot medium.

    Unfortunately this does not work, nothing is displayed on the TV.

    Can anyone help me?

    Hello,

    I have a question: what do you want to gain using that SSD as boot media?

    As the LE is a very slim OS, I don't think to be a significant boot time difference (USB - USB-Sata adapter - SSD vs. SD-card reader) if you use a good quality high speed SD-card.

    Always is a good idea to split in two different device the "boot/system" and the "user/personal" data. That can save a lot of time in the case of new install (or when an update going wrong...). I recommend to you to get a good small SD-card for LE, and the SSD keep it for media and other data.

    Quote from MatteN

    Even booting from ssd connected to usb2 is faster than any sd-card.

    I's not about if is faster or not. It's about if worth to gain few seconds boot time (3-5 seconds or more?) when lose the safety of keeping the boot/system separated from personal/media data. After an bad update or reinstall, the time lose will be definitively more than few seconds in the case of booting from SSD what contains few tons of media files too... Also the boot time can be reduced by limiting some writes to card (disabling the log files, in the case of PVR redirecting the EPG database to ram-disk...).

    The issue is solved: I had to update the Raspi firmware via Libreelec settings.

    Quote from VLouis

    I's not about if is faster or not. It's about if worth to gain few seconds boot time (3-5 seconds or more?) when lose the safety of keeping the boot/system separated from personal/media data. After an bad update or reinstall, the time lose will be definitively more than few seconds in the case of booting from SSD what contains few tons of media files too... Also the boot time can be reduced by limiting some writes to card (disabling the log files, in the case of PVR redirecting the EPG database to ram-disk...).

    I had an unused SSD flying around and just wanted to try it out. the investment of 10 euro in an adapter. The result is nice but not overwhelming. Boot time and running through the menus is quicker and more fluent: slightly, not significantly.