Reply To: Basic Question on SD Card Image

[herbfargus]

The raspberry pi doesn’t have built in storage- so the microsd is your operating system and harddrive essentially. So yes- you’ll need to keep the microsd in there if you want it to run.

You can get microsd cards and card readers for pretty cheap online.

The card reader is only needed to install the image from a laptop. You don’t need it afterwards as you can plug the microsd directly into the raspberry pi.