RASPBERRY PI 4 NEW BETA FIRMWARE ANNOUNCED - NOW BOOT VIA USB MASS STORAGE DEVICE
Raspberry Pi 4 was released in June 2019 with features mentioned below:
- A 1.5GHz quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A72 CPU
- 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM
- Full-throughput Gigabit Ethernet
- Dual-band 802.11ac wireless networking
- Bluetooth 5.0
- Two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports
- Dual HDMI
- VideoCore VI graphics
- Compatibility with earlier Raspberry Pi products
One of the major highlights of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was USB 3.0, which offers a massive bandwidth boost, which has a big impact on the performance of an external storage device. But, unlike previous models, the Raspberry Pi 4 didn't support USB mass storage boot, which prevents the users from installing an operating system (OS) on Raspberry Pi from a USB mass storage device.
With lots of benefits also, this model didn’t make up to that level due to its some issues like:
- Heating Issues
- Limited compatibility with older Pi cases
People also faced problems in booting the Raspberry Pi 4 Model via USB. The earlier version, Raspberry Pi 3 has both the ability to boot the device via SD card as well as the USB which lacks in the new version of Raspberry Pi 4. Therefore the firmware update was required for the booting procedure. So the team was busy updating the new firmware for the user to allow them to boot the device via USB mass storage.
So, here comes a piece of good news for all the technocrats who were eagerly waiting for the beta firmware. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the new beta-firmware testing and will soon be available.
This new firmware gives users the ability to boot the Pi from USB Mass Storage device, giving the techies an opportunity to connect the device, through its high-speed USB3.0 ports and installing OS via USB3.0 mass storage device.
The firmware is available as public beta but will be finalized after a few more testing. The new firmware and bootloader give the users the option of booting from a faster USB mass storage device instead of using an SD Card.
Instructions and details regarding how to upgrade to the beta firmware and how to report any bugs that are faced by the user in the process for configuring the bootloader can be found on the official website of the Raspberry Pi.
So, stay tuned it will not take too long and will soon be launched.
Also, Check our Blog on RASPBERRY PI HARDWARE SETUP
