Raspberry Pi 4 USB Boot is official! How-to

It's finally here! The Raspberry Pi engineers finally made USB boot on the Pi 4 official, taking it out of beta. This video shows you how to boot a Pi 4 off a USB drive for better performance and stability... or just for fun!

Check out my blog post on booting the Pi 4 via USB:

Also check out my two previous videos on USB drive performance on the Pi 4:

#RaspberryPi

[bipolarchemist]

It might be worth mentioning for those who don't update/upgrade regularly to perform 'sudo apt update' before 'sudo apt upgrade'. Thanks for keeping up the stream of interesting and useful videos.

[FatNorthernBigot]

I applaud your non-clickbait title. 👍🏻

[John.z]

Thank you. Mine was up to date. My Pi4/8G runs noticeably faster using a USB3 SSD than it did off even the fastest microSD I could get.

[soupwizard]

Hey this is cool, now I can easily boot a Pi 4 off an ssd drive in an external sata to usb 3.0 case!

[keithmiller]

Thanks, I have been waiting for them to make it default supported, so good news.

[GLACIOUS]

I was watching videos reviewing my recently purchased "RasPad III" and saw a reviewer (considering) booting from USB and I had to find out how. My SD card readers have been giving me a hard time lately but no trouble with my USBs. I also noticed that there were still usable ports inside the "Pad" when it's all closed up. My thoughts went to the mouse dongels and storage USBs...
...until that review. I am so looking forward to this! Thanks for a VERY clear, straightforward explanation. I love Pi! Glanced at your video list and WILL hit "Sub"! G'day!

[gamepad]

Nice I'm already waiting for when my Sata to USB adapters arrive so I can start making connections to my Pi.

[JzJad]

Ctrl+shift+X in the Raspberry pi imager, enjoy!

[YouTubeCompilations]

Thanks Jeff, appreciate the knowledge.

[curious-homebody]

raspi-config offers boot eeprom updating also.

[harshbarj]

I have a USB M.2 drive coming so my PI has a real boot drive. No more worrying about flash wear leveling! With luck I can get it working quickly.

[losensyler]

Thank you for all the great videos, really helpful!

[LeoBattlelionskillua]

Until next time he's gonna be Jeff Geerling, but better stop back again later to check if he's still gonna be Jeff Geerling. ;)

[amiguirigillo]

Thanks! this information is totally new for me, now I can usee USB Flash memories, cool! thanks

[johngrwf]

Good news, I'll use my spare M.2 SATA drive. Thanks Jeff

[BeeTrillion]

I just use the SD Copier to copy over the SD Image to the USB-Drive, and then boot from the USB Drive when I'm works :)

[mikefromwa]

I swear that Jeff sounds exactly like Steve Buscemi. Once you hear it, you can't unhear it.

[VulpesLP]

Doesnt work for me :/
When trying to boot from the USB-Flash-Drive with a HypriotOS Image i want to use, it shows multiple error messages and most of all: "usb-msd boot requires newer software"
even though i updated everything beforehand.
Trying this on a Raspi 4B.. Can anyone help a newbie out?

[ArshaansEdits]

i tried the method but my pi showed only blank screen after rebooting with ssd. It boots perfectly with sdcard, it says the bootloader is latest, after i did it, Please help me!

[panoshountis]

Great video, thank you. Just a clarification, now with this can we skip the need for the MicroSD card if we want to use BerryBoot? Can the BerryBoot bits boot from the same USB drive that the Operating Systems also reside?