In the field of industrial automation control, industrial PCs are an important tool used for various applications such as data acquisition, control, and monitoring. When installing or deploying systems on industrial PCs, we often use USB flash drives for booting. How do we choose a suitable USB boot solution?
How to boot from a USB drive
There are many ways to boot from a USB drive, such as:
In the BIOS environment, set the USB drive as the preferred boot device.
Use a third-party startup management tool.
After inserting the USB drive, press "F12" to enter the boot selection menu, and then select the USB drive boot option from the menu.
All of the above methods can achieve USB boot, but the specific method to choose depends on our actual needs.
How to choose a USB flash drive
Select the appropriate USB flash drive storage capacity.
USB flash drives come in different storage capacities, and their prices vary accordingly. Generally, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB USB flash drives are sufficient. If your system is large, you can choose a larger capacity USB flash drive.
Choose a high-quality USB flash drive
Choosing a reputable brand and reliable quality USB flash drive is crucial for ensuring successful booting. I personally recommend brands like SanDisk, Kingston, and ADATA.
Does the USB flash drive support USB0?
USB 0 is faster and can improve boot speed. If the industrial computer supports the USB 0 interface, then you can prioritize choosing USB flash drives that support USB 0.
Precautions for booting from a USB drive
You need to set the boot order of the industrial control computer to USB drive as the preferred boot option, or manually select USB drive as the boot option before starting the computer.
When using a USB drive to boot, it's crucial to ensure the integrity of the files on the USB drive. If any files are corrupted, the boot process will fail. It's best to check and back up your files before booting from the USB drive.
Before plugging in the USB drive, you need to check if there are any impurities in the USB drive interface, as impurities can easily interfere with the contact and cause boot failure.
You also need to pay attention to factors such as the capacity and speed of the USB drive; if it is too small or too slow, it will affect the boot efficiency.
Using a USB flash drive to boot from an industrial computer is a very common operating method. Hopefully, the above introduction can help readers better choose USB flash drives and achieve USB boot, thereby improving the working efficiency of industrial computers.
