Raspberry Pi write cycles - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

23 Aug 2019

...
  But then it turned out not to be the load at all.  No
matter what I ran 
 on that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the 
 symptom was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on).  I 
 assume it was just something broken in the Pi itself. 
You can simply root off of a USB disk by changing the "root=" parameter in 
cmdline.txt on the FAT partition on your SD card. Since the card won't 
otherwise be used unless you mount it if you do this, your next card 
should last forever. I've got a Suptronics x830 board and enclosure with 
an 8 TB drive which boots this way.

Any Pi processor newer than the original ARM1176JZ should run NetBSD 
pretty well. My 900 MHz Pi 2 runs NetBSD/vax almost as fast as a 
VAXstation 4000/30 (VLC), which is about 5 VUPS. An original Pi or Pi Zero 
should be able to emulate a VAX at least as fast as an 11/780.

One issue with CPU intensive things on Raspberry Pis is that even if your 
power supply provides plenty of current, the slightest drop in voltage can 
cause throttling. If you know your power supply is good but see a 
lightning symbol anyway, add "avoid_warnings=2" to config.txt on your SD 
card's FAT partition.

John