I have read almost every posting here and I am totally confused. What do I need to do to get Home Assistant to boot from an SSD on a PI4? Are the explicit instructions somewhere?
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I havenāt researched it in a couple months, but my last understanding was that pi4 is not currently able to boot directly from ssd. For now I believe you can still use a pi4 with hass installed on the ssd, but you need an sd card with bootcode.bin for it to boot up. Eventually (hopefully soon) the firmware for pi4 will be updated with ssd boot features. Until then, the sd card trick can get you by.
I mentioned beforeā¦ the sd card trick has no major negatives as compared to a āpure ssd bootā setup. Since the sd card is only accessed during bootup, it will last forever compared to an āold schoolā all sd card install, which constantly writes to a database on the sd card (this database writing is the main cause of early sd failures). So realistically, a pi+ssd+sd (with only bootcode.bin) will last as long as one without an sd. Granted, you wonāt be able to brag about having āno sd cardsā, if that matters. 
@dweston, thanks for sharing that link. It has very relevant info for folks who may be having problems moving their hassio to ssd. I mentioned a few of the pi hardware configs that I played with in the process of getting mine to work, but the exact timings and nuances between different hardware are hard to describe on top of the general upgrade procedure. That page will help straighten out what can be done for many different hardware issues for a broad assortment of ssd/adaptersā¦ definitely needed in this discussion!
It there any good and clear guide on how to do this in pi 4?
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Has anyone tried one of these boards on the Pi4 for USB SSD booting?
And apparently you can boot right off an SSD drive (without an SD card) as per this link: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/boot-raspberry-pi-from-usb,39782.html has anyone tried that?
right now you cannot boot the Pi4 from usb, look here
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/bootflow_2711.md
I flashed (by Etcher) 3.5 to Samsung EVO 840 SSD, made Config file to USB stick (Wlan0) and run my spare RPi 3. After approx 5 mins defined IP appeared on IP scanner and after another up to 15 mins it was possible to connect. So far so good.
Installed and configured Samba => Transfered snapshot to Backup folder => Hassio does not see it.
HA restart does not help, and HassOS reboot crashed and the only way is to do the whole process again.
There is no difference if SD card with .bin file is used or not.
Any advice please?
Edited:
HassOS reboot if power off / on seems to be OK, reboot through UI is still problem.
To āseeā the snapshot, open up snapshots and click on the REFRESH button in top right corner.
Thanks, it was my fault (must refresh my HA basis 
)
But what to do with HassOS reboot?
Either power cut or reboot (of HassOS) result into start from the beginning.
My suggestion is to use Raspbian and install hass.io in Docker
From my point of view, itās more flexible solution as you have full access to your system
Will it solve the issue described above? i.e. crash after reboot or power cut
power cut is unexpected shutdown, so you may have problems on SSD, SD, HDDā¦ everywhere, due to corrupted file system
If we are talking about proper reboot, I believe yes - you should have no issues with official Raspbian
Just flash and and try it. Anyway itās easier to debug when you have full access
FYI Boot from USB-SSD only works once Ā· Issue #891 Ā· raspberrypi/firmware Ā· GitHub
Hi, wish to use a spare pi3 for an additional instance of HASSIO, but wish not to use SD card, I prefer a more reliable steady system
Beside the SSD, that now can be found at 20 Euro or so, is there anything else needed to buy: is there anything ready to use? Just an SSD that you hook up to the USB??
Make sure the SSD is suitable for USB boot from the Piā¦ not all are apparently.
Ok but you connect the SSD to the pi3-USB just with a cable? Or you need an adapter, a card?
Iād use a USB enclosure. If you buy a sata to USB cable (included in the USB case) you still need to house it somehow.
I use msata disk and just type āmsata usbā or āssd usbā on Aliexpress and you will find.
thanks, like this right?
and then buy a msata SSD?
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yes, Iāve very good experience with this one:
US $14.64 45%OFF | KingSpec mSATA SSD Solid State Disk SATA III 64gb 120gb 128gb 240gb 256gb 500gb 512gb 1tb ssd Hard Drive for laptop netbook
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I managed with Kingston A400 128GB SSD + Orico SATA to USB3.0 adapter and bootcode.bin in the root of a 32 GB SanDisk SD CARD FAT32 formatted at first boot. After that I removed the SD card ā¦ no issues after that.
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