Hi i am new for SMC
Current i am using xu4 emmc for dietpi .
stupid question : U-Boot means i can boot from USB External drive without sd or emmc ?
or How can i move everything to usb external drive without sd/emmc ?
No, this has nothing to do but you could have a look to following link. https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-xu4/software/building_webserver
At least it seems some part could be moved. But I’m not sure.
To be true, I’m not sure whether USB works in this particular case. The XU4 still uses a Hardkernel kernel and U-Boot (although built by Armbian). But you could simply test it. You can flash the image directly to a USB drive. If it is a 2.5" or 3.5" drive, often flashing tools do not list them, but USB sticks only. But, in case of using Windows, Rufus does have an option to show them as well as flash target: https://rufus.ie/
Hi,
I’m looking for a similar solution for the HC4 (boot from SSD). But unfortunately, the HC4 is not shown as supported device at all. Any chance to get this running with DietPi or do I need to stick with armbian?
what are you looking for exactly? Running DietPi on a C4 or to boot it of a SSD?
Both. Running it on a HC4 and boot from SSD. The bootloader has to stay on the SD card but all system files should be placed on the SSD.
For the HC4 you should be able to use the same image as we offer for the C4
Thank you for your super fast support
Is there any recommendation how to split bootloader / system between SD-card and SSD? Want to avoid any incompatibilities with the DietPi update and config tools.
We don’t have any guide are howto for this. You could try following this link https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-xu4/software/building_webserver
Ok, thank you. Ordered one. Let’s wait for shipping…
Why you want to split it actually, instead of booting from SSD all together?
question is if the entire system could be located on a SSD and booting from USB is possible??
As I know, the HC4 (and probably other boards as well) is not supporting a bootloader on anything else then SD/eMMC.
Boot from SSD using Hardkernel’s Odroid HC4 - Odroid HC4 - armbian forum
Some information about the background of my question:
I’m currently running iobroker on a C4 as a docker container and must rebuild the entire system (side by side because I need the old system up and running). iobroker is very I/O intensive and should not run on an SD. With docker I was able to move the entire iobroker system with full logging etc. to an SSD and keep “only” a slim DietPi host system running on SD. But beside this and other advantages of docker, it is an overhead I try to avoid for the new setup. The SATA support of the HC4 eliminates the USB adapter and makes it handier.
Did you tried to follow the link I shared above to move parts of the system to a SSD?
A problem with this method is that kernel upgrades and U-Boot config changes won’t work anymore since the used boot partition (which is the old root partition after copying it to SSD) does not have kernel/dtb in it’s root but in boot/ sub directory. So you cannot mount it to the new root’s /boot. Mounting it elsewhere and using a bind mount to /boot should be a functional workaround though.
Not yet, I’m waiting for delivery. The supply chain crisis makes it difficult (and expensive) these days. 
Due to some local shortages (and for some more performance) I decided to go for the N2+ with eMMC for System and SSD for the iobroker data. I need the system until end of June. I’ve read your comments about the M1 and don’t think that an image is available within the next 6 weeks?
I would not count with it as we need to have a base image first or some developer sample. Both we don’t have atm.
I was able to get a reasonable priced M1 8G last week. I played around a bit but struggled with my limited Linux know how to boot at least a Debian live system. Petitboot does not show any of the Debian images, neither live nor net or mini. Hardkernel’s Ubuntu works, of course. My plan was to try a standard Debian installation. And if it works, the diet-pi installer script. Is this idea a dead end? Thx.
Well you need to wait until someone (like Armbian guy’s) created a Debian image.
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