2.5 hdd without ssd card

zefolhadela

is this legit? im about to test it know, but i also want to make sure voltages are ok and that i will not damage stuff. im pretty sure i need a external power supply for 3.5 hdd but not sure in 2.5 hdds.. and boot retropie from that is stable or better have a ssd card with retropie boot and roms on a usb drive with this method (https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive) ?

zefolhadela

update : i just found this https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md , i think this is pretty much what i need to know, i pretty much need to sacrifice a raspberry pi only for that changing internal confgs.. i about to do the normal way

Clyde

My 2.5 ssd works perfectly without an external power source, but a 2.5 hdd may need more power, so alas, I can't tell you if it will be safe.

Yes, the Pi 3.5 without "+" needs to be enabled for USB booting, but that doesn't "sacrifice" anything other than a tiny bit of security by opening the possibility to hack the Pi by a malicious USB boot device – a negligible risk for most Retropie builds, I would say. 😉

Besides, if an attacker gets physical access to your Pi, he/she may just switch the sd card instead of trying to boot from USB.

The Pi developers seem to see it similarly, since they enabled USB booting by default on the 3.5+. 😉

zefolhadela

i have the pi3+ , you are right man, lol i forget to mount the img i just drag it LOL, im embarrassed. i done it man im running emulation station from hdd without sdd card, takes me some tweaks to file size the memory. i think this is normal cause is running from USB, but still is kinda suspicious, roots are duplicated here.

zefolhadela

ps i find myself commited to this cause i have my build in a 32gb sdcard so i coulnd't put it in a 16gb card even if i remove game to make the size lower cause no matter what makes a 32gb img.

mitu

@zefolhadela You'll need something like PiShrink to reduce the size of the .img file. Or use the 2nd backup method from the docs and copy only the necessary files from the initial image over a new image.

zefolhadela

@mitu thanks man, always saving my life, u mean this? https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/
btw i get this working running retropie from HDD without a sdcard seems work flawless (downside is that just can transfer files via shh or samba). i just tested in this old hdd, i will tranfer this to a new one hdd next week, i will try that stuff.
im OK running Retropie from HDD without sdcard right? or u highly recomend me to run of an sdcard and than games from usb?

mitu

@zefolhadela If you're happy with the results of running from external HDD, sure, you can leave the SD card aside - it's not a problem.

zefolhadela

@mitu Cool thanks Mitu!

Clyde

Actually, most USB storage is superior to sd cards: faster, more long-lived, more cost-effective. The only advantage of sd cards that I can think of is their small size.

mitu

@Clyde said in 2.5 hdd without ssd card:

The only advantage of sd cards that I can think of is their small size.

Yes, it's easier to backup to a single - smaller - image file, plus on major upgrades it's just flashing a new image.

Clyde

@mitu Actually, I meant their physical size, 😊 but their smaller storage size makes backups and upgrades more practical, too. That said, SDHC officially goes up to 32 GB, but there are much bigger "SDHC" cards out there, of which some are said to work in a Pi, so …

I'm using a 32 GB card for my Retropie system and an external ssd for the roms. For my backup, I plug both of them into my PC running Kubuntu Linux (the card via a usb adapter), mount the ssd into the roms directory of the sd, and then backup the whole directory structure like it exists on my Pi. Thus, I do not benefit from the sd card's smaller storage size, but I guess my method is fairly uncommon. 😉