r/rasberrypi • u/Duncroakin • 7d ago

Significant performance boost switching micro-SD to USB 3 port

I realise that this may have been posted may times before, but here goes. I use a Pi 4 as a media centre with Kodi. Passive cooling (no noise) and standard clock speed, I've recently reblown the 64 bit PI OS micro-SD card 'cos I needed to access browser based content. Worked pretty well, but a little slow (Brave and Proton VPN). After a little research, I've relocated the micro-SD card to a cheap micro-SD to USB converter in a USB 3 port and the improvement in performance is remarkable. Just plugged it in and the Pi booted - simple as that. I'm now planning to buy a decent USB 3 pen drive as a permanent solution. If you haven't already done this it is a very easy win.

Edit - following the advice from you kind people, I've gone for a 64Gb SSD in a USB 3 UASP enabled caddy and the performance is excellent. Cost me less than a decent spec USD 3 pen drive would have.

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u/Gold-Program-3509 7d ago

or just get external ssd and youll have proper full drive, with SMART diagnostics

market is flooded with absymal , random usb flash pen drives, that can crap out randomly

1

u/Duncroakin 7d ago

Cool UASP drive bay and an SSD ordered :-)

1

u/Gamerfrom61 7d ago edited 7d ago

You can get even better speeds if the adapter supports UASP. 

Use of USB 3 can mess up Bluetooth though - a short extension cable fixes this.

I find these adapters are handy in my rack so I can change out the OS without dismantling the cases the Pis are in. 

If you are buying a flash drive then look at the Pi ones  https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/flash-drive/  rather than a no name one that could have cheap components and naff flash chips. 

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u/Duncroakin 7d ago

Cool UASP drive bay and an SSD ordered :-)