So I got a NesPi case for my Pi 4 that the BBS lives on. It is a mini-NES console, and the 'carts' hold an SSD hard drive. You can switch carts and
boot a new Pi system over USB.

Great, right? Well...

I copied my BBS SDcard over to the SSD using Raspberry Pi OS SD Card Copy.
(You can also DD it, but you know that you Linux rockstar...) I used the
newly released update to raspi-config to turn on USB Booting, which is now located under the Boot menu in raspi-config. (Cool!!)

However, upon booting with no SDcard directly thru the USB SSD I got tons os systemctl FAILS in the boot process and was left with either a black screen
and a cursor in the upper left, or it sometimes dropping me a a CLI linux
login prompt. (And, login was limited - the system wasn't loading correctly
at all.)

Anyway, after tons of research and pulling out my hair I found this on the RaspberryPi.org forums:

STICKY: If you have a Raspberry Pi 4 and are getting bad speeds transferring data to/from USB3.0 SSDs, read this https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931

So it seems that certain, low quality, Sata to USB connectors are having
issues with UAS and either really low data speeds - or not wanting to boot AT ALL... theres a 'USB quirks' work-around that disables UAS and allows these connectors to... connect correctly. You have to edit the cmdline.txt in /boot... So I did...

And it boots right into my GUI as normal. I'm getting what I think are OK speeds; 270,000 sequantials 5500reads 5000writes...

But I have to say I can't recommend the NesPi 4 case any more for your Raspberry Pi 4!! It's an awesome little case, and I figured I could have different 'NES carts' with RPi systems loaded on each SSD. But why the heck would they use a Sata to USB cable that isn't even capable of booting a system!?! I think two reasons; cost, they're trying to get it as cheap as possible... and, the USB boot just now went non-beta; so I bet they hadn't tested that part of it as you had to update eeprom manually before... I bet they just tested the mass-storage part and shipped their product.

Anyway, if yer excited about USB boot and try it and have issues, start here. It will save you a bunch of time.

Cheers... 20 For Beers BBS is now running on a 1TB SSD HDD... but I'll be switching out this case/SATA to USB connector to get speeds up.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)

STICKY: If you have a Raspberry Pi 4 and are getting bad speeds transferring data to/from USB3.0 SSDs, read this https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931

same here with an euteng msata to usb3 case on my raspberry pi4. its
related to the chipset that is used in the controller of that adapter. i
hope they gonna fix that in
a future kernel maybe? i have no idea if that controller firmware can be updated.
well, the solution is working now.. if you are ok with loosing a bit of
the transfer speed.

Mindsurfer

--- MagickaBBS v0.15alpha (Linux/armv7l)
* Origin: FuNToPia telnet://funtopia.ddnss.eu:2023 (1337:1/104)

On 21 Sep 2020, Mindsurfer said the following...

STICKY: If you have a Raspberry Pi 4 and are getting bad speeds transferring data to/from USB3.0 SSDs, read this https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931

same here with an euteng msata to usb3 case on my raspberry pi4. its related to the chipset that is used in the controller of that adapter. i hope they gonna fix that in
a future kernel maybe? i have no idea if that controller firmware can be updated.
well, the solution is working now.. if you are ok with loosing a bit of the transfer speed.

I haven't got a Pi yet, but I do have 3 msata USB3 adapters for my older
SSD's that I have, I got 3 transcend 512GB msata SSD's, and the USB3 adapter
I have for them each is an "Apricorn mSata Wire". These work fine under
Ubuntu and Debian. I haven't recorded the transfer speeds with these but they are pretty quick.

---
|14Best regards,
|11Ch|03rist|11ia|15n |11a|03ka |11Me|03aTLoT|11io|15N

|07ÄÄ |08[|10eml|08] |15ml@erb.pw |07ÄÄ |08[|10web|08] |15www.erb.pw |07ÄÄÄ¿ |07ÄÄ |08[|09fsx|08] |1521:1/158 |07ÄÄ |08[|11tqw|08] |151337:1/101 |07ÂÄÄÙ |07ÄÄ |08[|12rtn|08] |1580:774/81 |07ÄÂ |08[|14fdn|08] |152:250/5 |07ÄÄÄÙ
|07ÄÄ |08[|10ark|08] |1510:104/2 |07ÄÙ

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (1337:1/101)

same here with an euteng msata to usb3 case on my raspberry pi4. its related to the chipset that is used in the controller of that adapter. i hope they gonna fix that in
a future kernel maybe? i have no idea if that controller firmware can be updated.
well, the solution is working now.. if you are ok with loosing a bit of the transfer speed.

Mindsurfer

First, glad you got it ironed out too - I freaking thought it was a longshot that I found the data/figured out what was wrong; which is also why I shared. Glad to hear that others are finding the info online, too.

The way you described it, you sounded like you are hoping that Raspberry Pi fixes the issue with a future kernel... well I guess that linux - but point being, its on the OS side. Me, I was mad that this Raspberry Pi case company (RetroFlag NesPi 4) shipped a case, designed to be used as an SSD booting
case - with ability to change 'NES carts' or- hard drives inside a plastic
'NES cart' that used a connector that has this issue.

Because its not all connectors. The better quality ones, and even some
cheapies from China... work. The ones with full UAS SSD support... work.

Anyway, I'm right for thinking that RetroFlag is the one to blame here,
right?? While it might be nice if a kernel update or something Raspberry Pi
can do would help get these components working without a hacky work-around, a damn case company whose case IS for using SSD hard drives should have testing and known that they couldn't use the cheaper by $0.05 connector, right?! :P

Pisses me right off. And I was a big fan of this case, did a review of it and all - I can't recommend it anymore; waiting to see what RetroFlag says about the issue.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)

I haven't got a Pi yet, but I do have 3 msata USB3 adapters for my older SSD's that I have, I got 3 transcend 512GB msata SSD's, and the USB3 adapter I have for them each is an "Apricorn mSata Wire". These work
fine under Ubuntu and Debian. I haven't recorded the transfer speeds
with these but they are pretty quick.

What is 'pretty quick' using an SSD over USB to Sata connection? I'm getting something like:

270,000 sequential
5500 read
5000 write

And thats with the UAS-disabling work-around we were just discussing. I guess its still way better than an SDcard so...



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)

On 22 Sep 2020, paulie420 said the following...

What is 'pretty quick' using an SSD over USB to Sata connection? I'm getting something like:

270,000 sequential
5500 read
5000 write

And thats with the UAS-disabling work-around we were just discussing. I guess its still way better than an SDcard so...

What are you using to benchmark? I'll use the same for a better comparison.

---
|14Best regards,
|11Ch|03rist|11ia|15n |11a|03ka |11Me|03aTLoT|11io|15N

|07ÄÄ |08[|10eml|08] |15ml@erb.pw |07ÄÄ |08[|10web|08] |15www.erb.pw |07ÄÄÄ¿ |07ÄÄ |08[|09fsx|08] |1521:1/158 |07ÄÄ |08[|11tqw|08] |151337:1/101 |07ÂÄÄÙ |07ÄÄ |08[|12rtn|08] |1580:774/81 |07ÄÂ |08[|14fdn|08] |152:250/5 |07ÄÄÄÙ
|07ÄÄ |08[|10ark|08] |1510:104/2 |07ÄÙ

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (1337:1/101)

What is 'pretty quick' using an SSD over USB to Sata connection? I'm getting something like:

270,000 sequential
5500 read
5000 write

And thats with the UAS-disabling work-around we were just discussing. guess its still way better than an SDcard so...

What are you using to benchmark? I'll use the same for a better comparison.

I used the included app in Raspberry Pi OS. A very simple one, in the accessories menu...

Dunno if this is very smart, as I could doso from CLI too... but its what the STICKY I was reading told me to do.

:P Lol, I find myself following directions even tho I sometimes know a better way. SHRUG



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)