Before you start

What you need

myUSBdrive runs on a Raspberry Pi with your own USB drive. Here is the short shopping list. If you already have a Pi, you are most of the way there.

A Raspberry Pi in a case, power supply, USB drive, microSD card and reader, and a network cable laid out on a table
Raspberry Pi 4, 2GB £53
Pi case £10
Power supply £10
16GB or larger, high-speed SD card rated A1 or A2Test your SD card first (Windows) £8
microSD card reader £5
Raspberry Pi Imager, to write the card Free
Network cable £5

Typical total: about £90

Board prices checked at The Pi Hut in August 2026; the Pi, power supply and official accessories are also available from raspberrypi.com's approved resellers and any electronics retailer. You buy the kit once, and there is nothing else to pay to use myUSBdrive at home.

Which Pi, and how much memory

Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB (£53) is the sweet spot. myUSBdrive peaks at about 520MB in use, so 4GB or 8GB costs a lot more and does nothing for you.

Raspberry Pi 5 with 2GB (£62) is the newer board and noticeably quicker, which shows most when a big library is being scanned. Either one streams films, music and photos comfortably.

Raspberry Pi 3 is supported and capable. It is slower in three places: playing films your browser cannot play directly (such as MKV files), which the Pi converts as you watch; copying large files to and from the drive; and scanning a big library for the first time. That is because its processor is older and its network and USB ports share one slower connection. If you mainly want to store and back up your files, play music and look at photos, you will not notice the difference.

USB drive

Use any normal USB drive. A mains-powered USB drive is recommended, especially with a Raspberry Pi 3.

Download the free myUSBdrive image

No email address, no account, no waiting for a link. The file starts downloading when you click.

What's included

  • File server and media player
  • Stream music, films, and photos from any device at home
  • Automatic drive mirroring to a second USB drive
  • Password protected access
  • Automatic updates
Free forever at home. Why is it free?
Download myUSBdrive 6.2.30

1.69 GB ZIP · Raspberry Pi 3, 4 and 5

Follow the full walkthrough, with a screenshot for every step, from writing the SD card to signing in for the first time.

Step-by-step installation guide
SHA256 checksum
a7a7d1eb0f472cad76ef36099b7733e8305c14160b1ba00a0a3859d822512d70

After the download finishes, run one command and compare the result with the string above. If they match, the file arrived intact.

Windows PowerShell

Get-FileHash myUSBdrive_6.2.30.zip -Algorithm SHA256

macOS or Linux

shasum -a 256 myUSBdrive_6.2.30.zip

Email me a link to the download file

Watch a real installation from start to finish, from writing the SD card to browsing your files.

Watch the setup walkthrough

What's new in 6.2.30

  • Watch a film on your TV. Send it to a Chromecast at home and use your phone as the remote.
  • A new home page, with what's playing, how full your drives are and your libraries.
  • Eject a drive with one click, and see when it's safe to unplug.
  • A bigger music player and a cleaner album page.
  • A Podcasts folder type that remembers which episode you were on.
  • Thumbnails for home movies, taken from the video itself.
See everything new in 6.2.30