recommend usb external drive for booting?

Can anyone recommend a usb drive for using to boot off of? From what I understand the drive needs to be externally powered, not powered from usb, and I can only find ones that are powered over usb.

Thanks.

I don’t recall any of the four boards being able to boot off of a USB drive.

Gerald

Gerald, I am sure this would be a case you would love to be proven “wrong” ?

http://www.embeddedhobbyist.com/debian-tips/beaglebone-black/beaglebone-black-usb-boot/

Rusty, as long as it is a decent enclosure with an external power plug, it will/should work just fine. Personally in the process of writing the article above, I used an el cheapo PATA<->USB enclosure, with an PATA 300GB Seagate barracuda inside.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007705%20600006260&IsNodeId=1&name=Yes

Any of the above should work. Of course I can not personally guarantee they’ll all work, but you get the idea . …

So, what is the SD card? It can’t just boot off the USB? I believe in this case, I am still correct.

Gerald

Thanks. The drives can also be externally powered if they come with a Y usb cable where one leg of the Y goes to the board/computer and the other leg plugs into a usb power supply/wall wart. On Amazon it’s hard to tell which ones come with a Y cable. This one does, for example: http://goo.gl/nZMXvU

It may not be booting 100% of the hard drive and be doing some initial booting from the flash memory. But as long as it switches over to using the hard drive for the root filesystem and swap (and everything, once it gets booted) that will satisfy me.

Typo, sorry; I meant to say “It may not be booting 100% off of the hard drive”.

Correct. It is actually booting form the SD and then loading off the HDD. The boards cannot boot direct off of USB. They need that intermediate step. You could also use a large thumb drive like a 128GB.

Gerald

Actually, its loading the kernel from the HDD. Only the uboot files need be read, so as the device knows where to boot from.

If you want to be a 100% nitpicking techno-junkie, then a purely 100% SD/eMMC-less boot can be had by using eprom . . . as it stands, this form of USB boot satisfies me, and 99% of the other people out there :slight_smile:

If you actually read the article, you would realize there is no need to modify anything rh_ . . .

"So, what is the SD card? It can’t just boot off the USB? I believe in this case, I am still correct. "

So, what is a BIOS ? If in this case you are correct, then no computer system out there can boot off of USB. As all computer devices need to know how to bring up the hardware, DDR memory(
now days ) , and from where to boot.

Ok, so I was wrong, guess you do not care if someone can boot their BBB’s off of a USB drive.

Most of our PC boards says it can boot from usb

Actually , from Power on ,x86 jump to 0xFFFF0 and first instruction is jump to reset

All usb boot function implement in bios , you can skip the hardware driver , but you can not skip the BIOS

On current ARM cpu , bootrom will like BIOS ? or U-boot like more ?

The point is , USB stack , in current ARM cpu , instead of in BOOT ROM , almost implement in BOOT loader ,just like U-BOOT

You can add the usb host and fat file system support to support USB stick rootfs , just like live cd ?

But ,just personal curious , If you have the free on board eMMC , why you need to use a USB stick for rootfs ?

Actually , boot from USB ,as slave mode , as I know , iMX5/6 omap3/4/5 all support boot from usb otg (as slave mode )

Why would you boot a USB flash thumb drive ?

The whole point at least in my own opinion is that a USB HDD is not as write sensitive as flash memory media. Meaning you can write erase, write erase to your hearts content and generally not have to worry that the media may fail. So if you’re doing a lot of development naively ( in stead of cross compiling which i prefer ), you will not have to worry about the media failing.

As for the rest, we can sit and quibble about the various technicalities all day long. But in the end, a BIOS, and uboot perform the same duties.

Yes william

The only way to support load kernel from usb stick , is from u-boot ,no adult about this .

"So, what is the SD card? It can’t just boot off the USB? I believe in this case, I am still correct. "

So, what is a BIOS ? If in this case you are correct, then no computer system out there can boot off of USB. As all computer devices need to know how to bring up the hardware, DDR memory(
now days ) , and from where to boot.

Ok, so I was wrong, guess you do not care if someone can boot their BBB’s off of a USB drive.

Hi William,

Don’t get so defensive. Gerald is a hardware guy and so you should always interpret his answers with that in mind. Anyway, if you read the AM3359 TRM, it says the following:

26.1.8.6.1 Device Initialization
The ROM code supports booting from the USB interface under the following conditions:
• When the high-speed USB OTG (USBOTGHS) IP is used through USB0 interface.
• USB operates in full-speed, client mode.

USB will operate only in device-powered mode.
• Integrated transceiver (through UTMI).
• The enumeration default timeout is 3s (USB timeout).
• ROM code uses the default value of DATAPOLARITY.
Even though using an OTG capable hardware, the ROM Code does not handle any OTG specific feature.
26.1.8.6.1.1 Overview
In case of boot from USB is chosen by the SYSBOOT pin configuration:
• The USBOTGHS hardware and PRCM clocks are configured for UTMI mode.
• The ROM Code continues with the USB procedure only if the USB cable is detected present (i.e.
VBUS is detected at transceiver level and communicated as such through the UTPI traffic). If not, the
initialization procedure is aborted.
• The ROM code implements the RNDIS class driver.
• From a user’s perspective, USB boot is indistinguishable from Ethernet boot.
• The USB initialization procedure is shown in Figure 26-24

Regards,
John

"So, what is the SD card? It can’t just boot off the USB? I believe in this case, I am still correct. "

So, what is a BIOS ? If in this case you are correct, then no computer system out there can boot off of USB. As all computer devices need to know how to bring up the hardware, DDR memory(
now days ) , and from where to boot.

Ok, so I was wrong, guess you do not care if someone can boot their BBB’s off of a USB drive.

Hi William,

Don’t get so defensive. Gerald is a hardware guy and so you should always interpret his answers with that in mind. Anyway, if you read the AM3359 TRM, it says the following:

26.1.8.6.1 Device Initialization
The ROM code supports booting from the USB interface under the following conditions:
• When the high-speed USB OTG (USBOTGHS) IP is used through USB0 interface.
• USB operates in full-speed, client mode.

USB will operate only in device-powered mode.
• Integrated transceiver (through UTMI).
• The enumeration default timeout is 3s (USB timeout).
• ROM code uses the default value of DATAPOLARITY.
Even though using an OTG capable hardware, the ROM Code does not handle any OTG specific feature.
26.1.8.6.1.1 Overview
In case of boot from USB is chosen by the SYSBOOT pin configuration:
• The USBOTGHS hardware and PRCM clocks are configured for UTMI mode.
• The ROM Code continues with the USB procedure only if the USB cable is detected present (i.e.
VBUS is detected at transceiver level and communicated as such through the UTPI traffic). If not, the
initialization procedure is aborted.
• The ROM code implements the RNDIS class driver.
• From a user’s perspective, USB boot is indistinguishable from Ethernet boot.
• The USB initialization procedure is shown in Figure 26-24

Regards,
John

The point was, if I had not answered the OP he would have been left with the district feeling that what he wanted to do was not possible. When in fact it was.