HASS.IO -> transfer from SD card to SSD or USB

Installation Home Assistant OS
422

I have had success installing 5.1 RPi4 ( 4GB ) 64bit on a standard Sandisk USB stick. It has been running for over 12 hours and my addons are working fine. I just did a restore of my current production snapshot. I could not get the 32 bit version to boot.

I have been running on a SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro Solid State Flash Drive for a while now using Raspbian Buster and docker ( links below ) flawlessly for a couple of months, just make sure you are running the latest stable firmware for RPi4. These Flash Drives cost $64 AUD and are super fast. I just ordered another one for the HASS.IO build.

I have an EVO SSD that also works via docker but is overkill as the USB 3 connection limits the speed.

https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/releases/download/5.1/hassos_rpi4-64-5.1.img.gz
image

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423

Iā€™m running the current version, but using the boot files from 5.1. itā€™s been running about 4 days now. No problems except it keeps timing out trying to find the SD card. I put the card back in and it stops. Iā€™m sure Iā€™m missing something. More reading needed.

424

From post 365 above, I think this is what you need

extra lines to the config.txt

1:
dtparam=sd_poll_once=on

This line makes disable the time-out messages for the SD card
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425

Iā€™ made the jump to an SSD with the latest OS build 5.1. Iā€™m avoiding the update button for OS but is there any reason i shouldnā€™t update the Core software?
I guess there is really no reason to do these updates as everything works as isā€¦But for some reason i find those update buttons tempting!

426

Update to core are indepent regarding to underlying OS

427

I updated the core software from 0.113 to 0.114 a few days ago and everything is still fine. But never ever press the operating system Update button until build 5 is officially released.

428

just flashed this beta HA image to usb stick and no other modification ?
like kernel update etc ?

also can you share link of USB stick ?
howā€™s the performance ?
also previously you were using SD card only or SD card + usb stick ? (data from USB and boot via SD card)

429

Before flashing the 5.1 image you need to update your firmware, you can do this by following the guide from Tomā€™s Hardware. Stop using the guide after you have completed step 6.

An alternative guide for updating your firmware is https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-bootloader-firmware-updating-recovery-guide/

Once you have upgraded your firmware, remove your SD card, burn 5.1 onto an SSD or USB stick and boot.

The USB stick I am using for my Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) Lite / Docker / Hassio build is a SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro Solid State Flash Drive.

James Chambers also has a great list of speeds of various drives and cards

2 Likes
430

thank you so much , much improvement in page loading
previously i tried SD card+USB method but didnā€™t noticed much different

hope stable build will come soon so i can get rid of update button :sweat_smile:

1 Like
431

Great news, I am glad everything worked out. You asked me previously about the performance of my system. I have just found the bench marks I ran whilst building my Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) Lite / Docker / Hassio build.
Beachmarks generated using code from https://storage.jamesachambers.com/

ā€œsudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/PiBenchmarks/master/Storage.sh | sudo bashā€

Samsung EVO 950 SSD

Category Test Result
HDParm Disk Read 305.21 MB/s
HDParm Cached Disk Read 299.39 MB/s
DD Disk Write 200 MB/s
FIO 4k random read 19375 IOPS (77502 KB/s)
FIO 4k random write 10824 IOPS (43298 KB/s)
IOZone 4k read 30968 KB/s
IOZone 4k write 30474 KB/s
IOZone 4k random read 22614 KB/s
IOZone 4k random write 33359 KB/s

Score: 8760

Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD USB

Category Test Result
HDParm Disk Read 151.29 MB/s
HDParm Cached Disk Read 131.51 MB/s
DD Disk Write 141 MB/s
FIO 4k random read 2995 IOPS (11981 KB/s)
FIO 4k random write 2459 IOPS (9839 KB/s)
IOZone 4k read 23636 KB/s
IOZone 4k write 16635 KB/s
IOZone 4k random read 10876 KB/s
IOZone 4k random write 9757 KB/s

Score: 3622

Sandisk Extreme 32G Class: A1 Class 10 V30 U3

Category Test Result
HDParm Disk Read 38.36 MB/s
HDParm Cached Disk Read 35.61 MB/s
DD Disk Write 31.0 MB/s
FIO 4k random read 2257 IOPS (9029 KB/s)
FIO 4k random write 858 IOPS (3435 KB/s)
IOZone 4k read 7602 KB/s
IOZone 4k write 2018 KB/s
IOZone 4k random read 6101 KB/s
IOZone 4k random write 3041 KB/s

Score: 1137

432

Running the 64 bit version off hassos on a pi 4 (2GB)ssd now with no sd card.
(Tried the 32 bit version and indeed it does not work.)
And I can say itā€™s like the pi is on steroids even when you compare it to a sd-ssd setup.
Everything and I mean everything loads really fast or at least faster.
Memory wise I had my doubts about 64 bit because in my opinion it does not add anything useful exept more memory use.(Although I read articles that claim otherwise)
But even with the added memory on a 2 GB pi and a reasonable extensive system I still have more than 600 MBā€™s of free memory.

Rectify this now at 574 MBā€™s of free memory and 1281 MBā€™s of used memory.

So the spare pi 4 4GB will be collecting dust and when the time comes 64 bit is already up and running.
Also in my case the backup from my 32bit system works on the 64 bit version no bugs :grinning:
See this post as a user review :slight_smile:

3 Likes
433

Hi, thanks.

But we still need to use the sd card after ?

434

No, you donā€™t need it when you use HassOS 5.x on an SSD!

1 Like
435

Thanks for this update guys! Iā€™ve been looking into it for a while now, and this seems the solution.

Iā€™ve just bought my second Pi4 for a parallel build of a new environment. A 4GB this time, and want to use my USB SSD for storage. Booting from it isnā€™t a requirement to me, but if I can it is a nice to have feature.
Iā€™ve just tried it, and it works with the 5.1 64 bit without any problems. The 5.1 32bit wonā€™t boot however. My question is this. The 32bit is still the recomended version when I check the install page of HassOS. Can anyone point out what the disadvantage of installing the 64bit version is? I read in an old post that GPIO doesnā€™t work for example. That will be a dealbreaker for me because of some legacy 433MHz transmitter. But itā€™s also not quite clear to me if this is still the case.
So, long story short:
Are there any (big) disadvantages of using 64bit instead of 32bit?

436

I am running for more then 4 months now on the 64 bits version. No disadvantages dicovered untill now. Only disadvantage could be the lack of support of local GPIO that is currently no supported yet. Also some addons are not build (mostly user created addons) for arch64, all official addons support arch64. Extra Bonus is that the VSCODE plugin is also working (not available for 32 bit)

1 Like
437

Does this mean that GPIO on RPi will not be working (inputs, outputs) on this 64 bits version ?

438

I just dived into this, regarding the GPIO issue on 64 bit. It seems that this issue has been resolved in RPi.GPIO==0.7.0 (https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/15476) and homeassistant is using this version. I didnā€™t find any recent posts from someone who is using GPIO and has issues on the 64-bit version.

439

Thanks. So you are not using any GPIO in your RPi to confirm ? :slight_smile:

440

No not using any GPIO. For all IO related stuff i use a esp8266 with ESPHOME, so no usecase for GPIO from the raspberry PI

441

Well it sounds like you and I may end up being the guinea pigs on this one. My pi4 does have GPIO implemented for my siren outputs. Iā€™ve always used 32bit, but with 64bit available it seems a bit stale. Iā€™m still running an older config with the sd card for bootup. So I have nothing to lose trying it, and I have spare time this weekend to do just that.