I’m setting up Home Assistant on an Intel NUC equipped with an NVMe drive. I’m contemplating switching to MariaDB from the default SQLite. Before I proceed, I have a couple of queries where your insights would be invaluable:
MariaDB vs. SQLite Considerations: Are there specific aspects I should be aware of when using MariaDB instead of SQLite? For instance, in the scenario of creating a Full Backup via Settings → System → Backups in Home Assistant, does it automatically include a MariaDB backup, or is manual intervention required?
Add-On Auto-Update Strategy: Is it advisable to enable auto-update for the MariaDB add-on, or would it be more prudent to update manually for better control and stability?
I appreciate any advice or experiences you could share, especially from those who have navigated a similar setup.
Full backups include addons. However I think only the core SQLite database has protection from corruption with a lock while the backup is being made. So if using MariaDB you may have to do some database repair after restoring the backup. I’m not at all sure on this one, it may be implemented for MariaDB too.
I would not auto-update any addon. Always read the release notes before updating.
Thanks for the info! Looks like MariaDB needs some extra steps… I guess I’ll stick with SQLiteDB for now, even if it’s a bit slower. Really appreciate your help in figuring this out!
People still report corruption issues with SQLLite. However, it is much easier to administrate and manage. I run MariaDB and have 4 years of data stored in it, it scales very well - I give it 2GB of RAM and performance is very good. It does require IT skills as you’ll want to perform periodic backups using the MariaDB backup commands. I run it separately from HA in a docker container.