Howto run an Rpi or Opi from SSD (sd card only required for boot)

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Some time ago my server crashed due to a faulty SD card, so I moved the database into memory. Moving the database onto a ram drive works however is not fault proof, since if the power drops, all updates since the last backup are gone.

Looking at different solutions, the best solution seems to use the SD card only for booting, and after the kernel is loaded, immediately switch to an SSD drive connected to USB.( this is now working with the great help of @Mattie for the idea and testing).

Below are the steps to get the job done.

DISCLAIMER : Before you start there are 2 things to take in mind:

• ALWAYS READ THE DOCUMENTATION of the described commands, they can destroy your system if not used the correct way!!
• This document describes the steps to take, but you might need to dig into the documentation for some of the commands.

(I am using an OrangePI Zero, but it should also work on other OrangePI's and Raspberry PI's)

What you need:

• Rpi or Opi
• SSD Drive (16GB or 32GB) for bargains, search Aliexpress or Ebay.
• USB2SATA Enclosure to hold the disk and connect it to USB
• In some occasions an extra USB power adapter to power the SSD enclosure (in some occasions the USB port on the PI is not able to provide sufficient power, most of the time a Y splitter cable is also delivered with the enclosure).

Step 1.
Order all stuff you need from the above list. put it all together and hook it up to your system.

Step 2.
Find the device file used by the disk

root@orangepizero:~# dmesg | grep sd
[    2.503969] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 61865984 512-byte logical blocks: (31.6 GB/29.5 GiB)
[    2.504938] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    2.504972] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 28 00 00 00
[    2.505933] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] No Caching mode page found
[    2.505965] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    2.510405] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] No Caching mode page found
[    2.510435] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    2.511642]  sda: sda1

So our disk is sda with one partition (sda1)

Step 3.

It is important at this stage to stop all running programs, especially mycontroller!

service mycontroller stop

and maybe some others (if present)

service mysgw stop
service mcagent stop

We use a tool called rpi-clone to move all data from the SD card onto the freshly created file system:"

Download from rpi-clone from github, instructions below:

root@orangepizero:~/test# git clone https://github.com/billw2/rpi-clone
Cloning into 'rpi-clone'...
remote: Counting objects: 158, done.
remote: Total 158 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 158
Receiving objects: 100% (158/158), 75.00 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (59/59), done.
Checking connectivity... done.

Now goto the directory that holds the downloaded software

root@orangepizero:~/test# ll
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 May 14 20:14 rpi-clone
root@orangepizero:~/test# cd rpi-clone/
root@orangepizero:~/test/rpi-clone# ls
README.md  rpi-clone  rpi-clone-setup

then rpi-clone /dev/sda

Step 4.
Once the copy is completed, on the OrangePI the boot env file needs to be edited so that the UUID of the SSD is used to boot the OS,

The steps below show you how to find the UUID for your SSD drive:

• Find the UUID of the disk,

root@orangepizero:/dev/disk# cd /dev/disk/by-uuid
root@orangepizero:/dev/disk/by-uuid# ll
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 14 20:01 19123ccd-df7e-4863-9c9d-b775750d2d6d -> ../../mmcblk0p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 14 20:08 3d03bbd4-9294-491e-9a91-69422a9ada93 -> ../../sda1

In this example the UUID for the SSD (sda1) we are looking for is: 3d03bbd4-9294-491e-9a91-69422a9ada93

remember this sequence

• Then edit /boot/armbianEnv.txt

vi /boot/armbianEnv.txt
verbosity=1
console=both
overlay_prefix=sun8i-h3
rootdev=UUID=3d03bbd4-9294-491e-9a91-69422a9ada93
rootfstype=ext4

Now add the sequence behind rootdev=UUID= (see the example above)

After the edit of armbianEnv.txt, reboot the system with the command reboot

Done!!

Verify if /dev/sda1 is used after the reboot:

root@orangepizero:/boot# mount | grep /dev/sda
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro,commit=600,data=ordered)

That's it, system is now running from the SSD instead of the sd card!