Raspberry PI 4 + MicroSD + Fast USB for storage?

Installation
1

For my next installation of home assistant I’m using a raspberry pi 4 with the manual python installation steps as per:

I’m more than happy to have raspbian Buster and home assistant running off from micro SD card, but I wondered about having some kind of fast storage attached to USB 3 port for the database

I thought about an Samsung SSD SATA device in a sata usb3 caddy but I think it’s overkill.

So the question is are there any USB 3 sticks the people recommend that would be as fast as an SSD? don’t really need a massive amount of storage speed is more report

Thoughts?

2

Have you considered something like this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDS120G2G0B-Internal-Green/dp/B078WYRR9S/ref=sr_1_10?crid=2MKVV8OR52BZ7&keywords=ssd+chip&qid=1561656969&s=gateway&sprefix=Ssd+ch%2Caps%2C141&sr=8-10

In something like this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sabrent-NGFF-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-M2MC/dp/B0765D6NJV/ref=pd_sim_147_4/258-0103489-4552718?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0765D6NJV&pd_rd_r=18d88d4f-9902-11e9-8310-e5d42e918607&pd_rd_w=5zMrn&pd_rd_wg=7Z5mm&pf_rd_p=1b8636ae-4f21-4403-a813-e8849dd46de4&pf_rd_r=CDM9GW9AZN2120H3DRY8&psc=1&refRID=CDM9GW9AZN2120H3DRY8

Not the cheapest option but should be fast, also you really should be able to boot from it too.

3 Likes
3

Don’t do it. Use an SSD. Any garden-variety SSD will provide better performance (including wear-leveling to extend its useful life) than a thumb drive. There are inexpensive drive enclosures available (with built-in SATA-to-USB3 interfaces) that will easily accommodate an inexpensive 128 Gb SSD.

For the RPi, I recommend the FLIRC case. Both of my existing RPi 3’s are housed in FLIRC cases. The all-aluminum construction also serves as the CPU’s heat-sink (its molded in a manner that makes it come into contact with the CPU). Far more effective than the tiny heat-sinks commonly sold and its a case.

Place the case on top of the drive enclosure, plug in the cable, and you have a neat, compact and powerful combination.

2 Likes
4

You should consider using Hassio

5

I’m waiting for the next version of this, although it will currently work with the 4 with a USB cable, having it as a “shoe” feels it will be more integrated with the pi.

Or

https://amzn.to/2YoAw2c

2 Likes
6

Bertie ( :wink: ) ,
I have searched the forum looking for recommended ssd cases adapters for R pi 4 USB 3.0 system installation (raspbian + hassio), not sure if you have gotten this far. All the other threads list devices from the US (expensive with the p&p) Any UK recommendations ?

I’ve tried 5 so far, all fail to load the System.

7

As far as I know, it’s not yet possible to boot the pi4 from usb. It’s on the roadmap for a future bios update.

I have rigged one up so only the boot partition is on the sdcard. The ssd isn’t in the case though, it’s external in one of these.

8

Yeah I’ve been looking at the road map. I was thinking of the boot from sd then load system from ssd.
There are several guides for it but my issue is it seems picky about hardware. (I’ve had 5 failures) so I want an adapter that someone (UK) has actually succeeded with.

10

I assume you’ve tried disabling UAS?

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245931

11

Not read that but it certainly puts meat on the bones of the instructions I’ve read on Tom’s hardware guide and : -

My understanding is that it’s not the disk drive (sorry ssd (why do we still call them disk drives? Where’s the disk?)) but the adapter that requires the quirk. Though I’ve only tried the quirk on the 3 ssd adapters I’ve tried (each time with disastrous results, required reformatting)
The quirk seems to reduce the speed of the data transfer (figures vary greatly) but my aim was to achieve ‘best possible’ hence the search fo an adapter that works natively.
Thanks for your efforts. I just hate to pay 4x to get one from the states.

Edit: I’m using the flirc pi 4 case, I’m really impressed with it. I ran the python 3.7 compile option 4 times on the trot (to maximise cpu and read/write etc.) The case got ‘quite warm’ but the cpu topped out at 40.1°C (it normally runs at around 34) so yes I’d be happy to have a disk sitting alongside. As per your link.