[Solved] Has anyone got a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD to boot?

Posted by: @zander

I finally got a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V7S500/AM) [Canada Version] and an external case but the drive does not boot properly on my Pi4B-4GB.

[snipt]

If anyone has either got it working, or knows for sure it can't I would like to hear from you. I normally boot from a KingSpec 512GB SSD that the Swiss Guy recommended but it is only 5GBPS.

Have you seen this article ?

https://alexellisuk.medium.com/upgrade-your-raspberry-pi-4-with-a-nvme-boot-drive-d9ab4e8aa3c2

@will I was on that site earlier for a specific reason which led me to upgrade the EEPROM. What this tells me is my drive is busticated!

I notice on reading more that he uses dd to flash the drive whereas I used the standard Raspberry Pi Imager. I can't see it making a difference but will give it a try.

@will Looking at that article some more I am puzzled by the non-standard procedures and have no idea how to prepare a boot.txt file. I have never done that on any of the dozens of Rpi boot disks or cards. What I will try is to dd my working SSD to this new SSD. They are both the same size so I don't need to do anything special. I can't see any reason it will be different than the standard procedure but at the moment I have a somewhat expensive SSD. It works fine other than booting, and is super fast. Obviously there is more going on here with USB boot than I am aware of.

@zander

I had a similar problem with a different NVMe M.2 Internal SSD and case.  It worked fine on one of my rpi 4's when plugged into the USB3 port, but just would not boot on another.  So I tried plugging the SSD card into a powered USB hub (that was plugged into the reluctant pi) ... still not working... but then I tried it plugged into an older powered USB hub I had, and everything works perfectly.  

So in my case the issues were related to the power supply to the SSD drive/case and that not all powered USB hubs are equal. (and not all rpi 4's are equal).  Indeed I remember reading something about this so you will probably get more good information with a google on rpi powered USB3 hubs and SSD boot issues.

@byron Thank you, that sounds like a good possibility since I also have a pair of 8TB HDD's plugged into the other USB3 port. I just got a week ago a latest gen powered USB hub for my Mac Raid drive so I will borrow that and see what happens.

@zander

I have been using an ArgonOne m.2 case with an installed WD 500GB SATA drive with my RPi4 / 8GB, running RPi OS Buster for about six months now. I had no problems getting it to boot up the first time and it has run fine since then. I will mention that I changed out the power supply for the RPi to a 5V / 4A one, as suggested in one of the articles I read about upgrading (sorry, I don’t remember which one). Seems having a good power source has been a continuing problem with using these drives/cases. Must say, I love booting from and using the USB rather than the SD card. Good luck.

Regards, Lee

@lee-g I tried a powered hub and nothing. I am going to redo the pi imager just in case the SSD got damaged by powering off. I found the Argon ONE M.2 but out of stock at the PiShop and $87CDN on amazon.ca. I also found an Argon charger but 3.5A/18W. Is yours 20W? Since I have used it successfully on my Mac, I am inclined to believe the SSD is ok, but somehow the Pi is flaky. I have a 2nd Pi4B-4G, so I will try swapping that.

@lee-g The other Pi worked great after I saw the error about the wrong USB3 port. Plugged in identical to the other Pi and no work. Now I am going to try changing the cmdline.txt file to remove splash so I can see the messages in case I got confused over which USB 3.

Got it. The powered hub must have fixed it once I plugged everything into the right places. Can you tell me the brand name on the wall wart you have that is 4A?

@Zander,

I was mistaken, it's only 3.5A. It's the one from Argon, I got mine when I ordered the case. All the articles I read about upgrading to SSD drives were talking about having a good power supply.

Lee

@lee-g I measured the current the SSD uses and it's about .5A so 3.5 is the minimum needed. I have a powered hub with a powered USB port that the SSD is connected to so my existing 3A charger is ok. Also the 2 8TG raid array is also powered so no problems there either. Thanks for solving this mystery for me, I doubt I would have figured that out by myself.

OOPS, I neglected to thank @byron who was the first to mention the powered USB hub solution.