Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Demands SD Card as Emotional Support to Boot from SSD

A developer has successfully booted a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B from a solid-state drive (SSD) via USB, a process that required overcoming several technical nuances. The experiment involved five Raspberry Pi devices, including four Model B and one Model B+, and utilized spare SSDs instead of purchasing new SD cards. The developer followed established steps to enable USB booting, including upgrading the Raspberry Pi OS and modifying the config.txt file. However, the process only worked for the Model B+ initially, and required an SD card to be present for the Model B devices to boot from the SSD. The developer eventually verified this hypothesis and successfully booted the Model B devices using the SSD as the primary storage. The process has implications for users seeking to improve the performance and storage capacity of their Raspberry Pi devices, particularly in applications requiring high disk usage, such as containerized environments.