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Pi SD Card vs PC RAM/HDD

martinhammer1

I'm new to the R Pi, haven't got all the bits yet so can't even power it up but when I can - Is the SD Card equivalent to the RAM or the HDD or both on a PC? Can the R Pi address anything above 4GB on the SD Card? I want to know to decide whether it is worthwhile buying a larger than 4GB SD Card.

  • Be sure to check out the RasPi Wiki at http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Hub.  Lots of questions are answered there, including Troubleshooting.

     

    RasPi's SD card fulfills two PC functions: BIOS and HDD.  A RasPi with no SD card cannot do anything.  If there is an SD card, RasPi boots using the SD card's first partition.  It contains the boot software that's in a PC's BIOS Flash plus the Linux kernet.  The SD card's second partition has the GNU/Linux file system and user applications, so it's like an HDD.  You can add a USB HDD and USB Flash drives, which Linux can access once it's running.

     

    RasPi's 256MB of DRAM is soldered on top of the BCM2835 SoC (System on Chip).  RasPi DRAM is not expandable.  Lots more detail at the RasPi Wiki.

     

    Here's a list of verified SD cards: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#SD_cards.  They vary from 2 GB to 64 GB.  You can certainly go larger than 4 GB, but you probably won't need more than 4 GB unless you do a lot of video.

  • in reply to johnbeetem

    John,

     

    Many thanks, I like to understand what's going inside the thing!