#164 Which USB Disk is best for Raspberry Pi 3? How to connect and how fast are they?

It is quite clear that SD cards do not live forever, especially not in database or logging applications. Today we will try to solve this issue without spending a lot of money. And maybe we even will gain some speed. Recycling of old hard disks is the name of the game. Will we succeed and what is the speed of these old disks on our Raspberry Pi 3?

This video answers the following questions:

• What do you have to do to boot your Raspberry from a hard disk instead of an SD card?
• Which hard disks are usable for this purpose?
• Which interface cables are needed for which hard disk types?
• How do these disks perform?

We will test

• A 2.5” Hitachi mechanical disk. Age: 8 years
• A 2.5” OCZ SSD. Age 4 years
• A Western Digital 3.5” mechanical disk. Age: 10 years
• A KingDian 1.8” SSD. Age: New

ADDITION: If you add this line to config.txt: "using max_usb_current=1" the OCZ SSD and even the small mechanical disks boot also with the simple cable and no additional power supply. I did not do long tests if the Raspi power supply likes this... And I had no other things connected to the USB connectors.

ERROR CORRECTION: The big WD disk is 3.5", not 5.25" !!!

Links: How to boot from USB drive: http://bit.ly/2la2Oi7 Kingdian Drives Aliexpress: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/E6aam6Y Kingdian Drives Banggood: http://bit.ly/2vNZ3iU USB-SATA cable: http://bit.ly/2eyL1uu Male USB connector: http://bit.ly/2yH3ZKW Female USB connector: http://bit.ly/2yHOnXr USB Y cable: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/27YZJUj

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