Raspberry Pi A, User Manual, Page: 44 / 314

P A R T I
C O N N E C T I N G T H E B O A R D
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enough to open it on most operating systems; if not, download an archive utility like 7Zip
(
www.7-zip.org
) and try again.
When you have opened the file, use your archive software’s
extract
or
copy
function to transfer
the files from within the archive to your SD card (see Figure 2-4). This can take some time to
complete, thanks to the number and size of the files involved. Be patient, and when the extrac-
tion has finished and the activity light—if applicable—has gone off, use your operating sys-
tem’s Eject option to remove the SD card, and then insert the card into the Pi’s SD card slot.
Figure 2-4:
Extracting
NOOBS to the
SD card
Connecting External Storage
While the Raspberry Pi uses an SD card for its main storage device—known as a boot
device—you may find that you run into space limitations quite quickly. Although large SD
cards holding 32 GB, 64 GB or more are available, they are often prohibitively expensive.
Thankfully, there are devices that provide an additional hard drive capacity to any computer when
connected via a USB cable. Known as
USB Mass Storage (UMS) devices , these can be physical hard
drives, solid-state drives (SSDs) or even portable pocket-sized flash drives (see Figure 2-5).
The majority of USB Mass Storage devices can be read by the Pi, whether or not they have
existing content. In order for the Pi to be able to access these devices, their drives must be