Possible to use partition for HDD storage? about gadget_cdrom

[lordbink]

It appears it is possible. The documentation here says using a device is supported.
https://linux-sunxi.org/USB_Gadget/Mass_storage

I will do some testing at some point and try to document the process/results here.

[lordbink]

Here are my notes from testing:

1. Backup all the img and isos you placed on the storage/HDD device
2. Delete /iso.img (caution: this deletes all your files that were on HDD/Storage)
3. Resize your root partition - I booted into a second system with gparted - mine has 15G, and I left the rest for storage/HDD)
4. Create and format the leftover partition, I used NTFS
5. Put the sd card back into the pi and boot
6. Inside the gadget_cdrom directory: Replace all instances of /iso.img (or "$(losetup -PLf /iso.img --show)p1") with the new partition (mine is /dev/mmcblk0p3)

• Mode.sh
• Clean.sh

7. Test by rebooting the Pi or restarting the gadget_cdrom service
8. Test by shutting down the Pi, removing the sd card and putting in a PC, transfer your files, eject/unmount and put back in the Pi

I was able to get an improvement in speed from 10-20M/s (through the Pi) to 90M/s (direct to PC). I am not sure this is worth the extra effort yet. For reference the card I was using is this a SanDisk 256GB Extreme MicroSDXC Micro SD - SDSQXA1-256G-GN6MA.