Raspberry 4,5 USB SSD boot in 60 seconds !

Updated 2024-06-05 !

Yes, it's really true ! Thats the maximum time it takes to write the Raspberry Pi(RPi) OS to a bootable USB SSD and maybe read this post ?

If you have a RPi 4, 5 and a USB SSD or other USB drive, that works as a boot media, just use the RPi imager which can write the image direct to the USB  storage.

Having an older RPi ? Use this post instead.

If you already have a SD card with working applications and you want to "transfer", copy/clone, them to a bootable SSD use this post.

How to

• Getting started
• Click on "WRITE", which with RPi OS Lite, already downloaded, took less than 35 seconds.
• Eject the SSD and disconnect it from the workstation
• Connect it to the RPi
• Connect power to the RPi and wait a little....
• Log on to the RPi

You are done !

Nice and quick, isn't it ?

Backup

If you want a bootable backup of the SSD/storage, to for example a SD card, use this post, also mentioned above, or if you are using a RPi GUI the standard "SD Card Copier".

The same apps are used for a restore.

Problems ?

Firmware

Is the RPi firmware really updated ? With 

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt clean

both the OS, firmware and bootloader(critical bug fixes), nowadays, will be updated.

So no additional measures have to be taken in consideration.

In rare cases you could have some of the first RPi 4 with an old bootloader that don't support USB boot. Checking with 

sudo rpi-eeprom-update

the "CURRENT:" should be greater or equal to " Thu  3 Sep 12:11:43 UTC 2020"

If not, just do the update commands mentioned above.

Bootable media

Is really the chosen USB media a bootable media for a RPi ? 

Can't help you there, but Google and get the answer.

RPi 5 boot problem

USB boot is disabled by default when connected to a 3A power supply so you must use a proper power supply, and power cord, that have at least 5 Amp capacity. Another way is to edit "config.txt",  sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt and add "usb_max_current_enable=1" at the end of the file.