Why SD card when USB boot is available for Raspberry Pi 3BX& RPi 2B v1.2[1]. SD cards are the abomination of single board computers, I understand that it is a choice taken to limit cost and I'm grateful for that but SD cards are not designed to run OS.
One might argue that USB 2.0 interface of RPi doesn't add much value when a USB SSD is connected to it, but benchmarks show that it adds at-least double the performance[2].
At first I thought the recommendation to use an SSD with a Raspberry was crazy, but the benchmarks do indeed show an improvement. And, as that article points out, since the SSD's performance isn't important (hitting the USB 2.0 limit) you can grab the cheapest, decent SSD which ... comes in at just $20!
Though I still like SD cards for the form factor. There's the newer A1 class SD cards with better minimum IOPS, which I'd be totally fine with. But reliability is still such a big issue with SD cards. I had one die a few days ago; always annoying.
Just to clarify by USB SSD, I mean a 2.5" SSD with an USB adapter and not the expensive USB-SSD like Samsung T5.
Reg the cheap SSD, yes also the benchmarks show the cheapest SSD (Crucial BX 500) on the top. I'm not certain, why this is so; I think it is because people put the cheapest SSD due to RPi limitation but then again Samsung SSD in those benchmark score less which scored high in actual SSD benchmarks for PC.
I think the conditions in the RPi doesn't bring out the best performance from Samsung's controller but does so with Crucial/JMicron. SD cards are supposed to be much more reliable than SSD, it is our improper application that's causing it to fail especially in the OC RPi.
One might argue that USB 2.0 interface of RPi doesn't add much value when a USB SSD is connected to it, but benchmarks show that it adds at-least double the performance[2].
[1]:https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
[2]:https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-storage-benchmarks/