Difference between revisions of "Raspberry PI USB Drives"

==USB Flash and Hard Drives==

==USB Flash and Hard Drives==

Sooner or later, you're going to run out of room on the SD card used to boot and run your Pi.  One solution is to move to a larger SD card, but, the largest low-cost high-speed cards are 32 GBs for about US$20 ~ $45 (May 2012).  However, there may be compatibility issues between these higher-capacity SD cards and the Pi, at least, temporarily.  USB flash drives (aka "thumb" drives) can provide additional storage for about the same, or less, cost as an SD card of the same capacity.  USB flash drives generally also have faster data transfer speeds than SD cards.  Another option is to connect a USB hard disk drive, which can provide over a terabyte (1 TB) in capacity and data transfer speeds well beyond 40 MBs/second, much larger and faster than SD cards or USB flash drives.

Sooner or later, you're going to run out of room on the SD card used to boot and run your Pi.  One solution is to move to a larger SD card, but, the largest low-cost high-speed cards are 32 GBs for about US$20 ~ $45 (May 2012).  However, there may be compatibility issues between these higher-capacity SD cards and the Pi, at least, temporarily.  USB flash drives (aka "thumb" drives) can provide additional storage for about the same, or less, cost as an SD card of the same capacity.  USB flash drives generally also have faster data transfer speeds than SD cards.  Another option is to connect a USB hard disk drive, which can provide over a terabyte (1 TB) in capacity and data transfer speeds well beyond 40 MBs/second, much larger and faster than SD cards or USB flash drives.

==Powered USB Hubs==

==Powered USB Hubs==

In order to expand the storage capacity, you may need to connect a powered USB hub to one of your Pi's USB ports, and then connect the USB drive to the hub.  A USB hard drive can either have its own AC/mains power supply or it will draw its power via the USB cable.  If it is the latter, then you will most certainly need a powered hub as the Pi may not have enough power for itself and extra devices.  A four-port USB 2.0 hub will cost about US$7 - $25 though do shop around as quality does vary.  Since the current Pi models only has a USB 2.0 interface so you do not need to buy a USB 3.0 device.

In order to expand the storage capacity, you may need to connect a powered USB hub to one of your Pi's USB ports, and then connect the USB drive to the hub.  A USB hard drive can either have its own AC/mains power supply or it will draw its power via the USB cable.  If it is the latter, then you will most certainly need a powered hub as the Pi may not have enough power for itself and extra devices.  A four-port USB 2.0 hub will cost about US$7 - $25 though do shop around as quality does vary.  Since the current Pi models only has a USB 2.0 interface so you do not need to buy a USB 3.0 device.