Raspberry Pi 4 unable to boot from SSD on USB [solved]

[jaroniot (Jaron)]

My setup:

• Raspberry Pi 4, 2GB
• SANDISK Extreme Portable SSD USB 3.1, 500GB
• hassos_rpi4-4.13.img.gz (with balenaEtcher)

Problem: HA does not boot from my SSD attached to the USB port whereas Raspberry Pi OS does (after EPROM update).
Assumption: HA isn’t based on the newest release of Raspberry OS and therefore is unable to boot from my SSD.
Good to know: I’m new to HA and therefore might not have been able to find the right answer during the last few days.

Question: Can I configure or update HA to solve my problem or do I have to wait for a HA release that supports my SSD?

Solution: I’ve installed the 64-bit version 5 of HA.

[123 (Taras)]

@jaroniot

HA isn’t based on the newest release of Raspberry OS

It’s not based on Raspberry OS at all.

You used hassos_rpi4-4.13.img.gz to install Home Assistant OS which uses its own custom operating system.

There are existing topics that deal with the challenge of getting Home Assistant OS to work with the combination of an RPI4 and SSD.

Hassio on PI4 with official SSD released bios support

Hi all I really like the all in one PI 4 image of home assistant, but i HATE SD as they failed me already two times so reinstalled HA from scratch already two times and makes me feel scared about home assistant. Is there any news about hassio image boot support for SSD as the stable BIOs is released or do I have to look for other alternitives because I had it with SD failures, don’t got a good feeling with HA for controlling my house with the current setup with SD

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

Let me start by saying Thank you to everyone that puts the time in around here. I use the forums a lot for help but have never posted. Without you guys/gals helping everyone there would be no HA. Now the issue I’m currently running HA on a raspberry Pi with an SD card and would really like to keep it on the Pi. I know some people complain about the slow reboot speeds etc. but honestly it’s been so stable I hate to ever move off the platform. However I do want to move away from an SD …

[Legandir]

There’s a topic on this very subject, which is well worth a read:-
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/hassio-on-pi4-with-official-ssd-released-bios-support/

To get a Pi4 to boot from SSD, you’ll need to use beta release of the 64bit version 5 os. More details in the thread. HTH

[jaroniot (Jaron)]

@123, @Legandir thanks for your answers. I’ve spent some time on reading these topics but couldn’t get my setup to work. So maybe the solution is somewhere hidden in there and I’ve got to spend more time to find it.

[123 (Taras)]

Look at the last ~50 recent posts. Some people have reported compatibility issues with some types of controllers (and described mitigation techniques). I can’t be more precise because I only monitor those threads merely out of curiosity and don’t own an RPI4.

[Legandir]

As Taras has said, above, about controller compatibility. There some mention of issues using the USB3 socket which don’t appear when using USB2. Another common point of failure seems to be trying to use version 4 software rather than the 5.* version (currently in beta).

[code-in-progress (Bill - I write code.)]

@jaroniot

SANDISK Extreme Portable SSD USB 3.1, 500GB

I have a few of these and honestly, they are pretty hit or miss with any OS on my rPi4s. On one rPi, I can get it to boot off of it, but on another (same exact firmware on the rPis, BTW) it won’t boot at all. So, now they are backup storage on my rPis.

[jaroniot (Jaron)]

Thanks to all for their replies! I’ve installed version 5 of HA and it now boots from my SSD.

[Maturity (Mike Hockings)]

I found that v5 seemed to be spewing a lot of errors so I just copied some of the files from the root of the /boot directory from v5.4 to the v4 64 bit image and it is booting sans SD card for me

[jaroniot (Jaron)]

I’ve got my version 5 running for a couple of weeks now and it seems to be stable so far. But it’s a very simple installation and I’m no reference.

[Maturity (Mike Hockings)]

Well, after v4 on the RP4 went back to not booting from the SSD after an update I thought I’d have another go with 5.4. It seemed to import the saved snapshot and all just fine. Then I let it apply the latest update and now even it does not successfully boot - it never came back from the update. When I purchased the RP4 and SSD it was a toss-up between that and a Hubitat and at this point I think I made the wrong decision. I do like HA but it does seem to be a high-maintenance toy that I can’t depend on to just work reliably.

[pepe59]

I upgraded via Flesh USB to version 5.4 and everything works fine without any problems. Rpi4 4 Gb SSD boot without SD card

[fielcapao]

Hi, I have similar issue for Raspberry Pi 4 - 4gb with Ubuntu Server 20.10, whenever I plug the ssd usb pi stop working.

Is there some way to install this HA 5* on Ubuntu Server please?

[qwery (M G)]

Hi Guys,
I could solve the problem with a USB 2.0 Hub between the (ssd and the conbee stick) and the raspberry pi 3b+
Somehow the USB 3.0 Inteface seems to be the bad guy in my case.

[bradymholt (Brady)]

I had the same problem and was using the 32 bit image. When switched to the 64 bit image it started booting from USB/SSD.

[jaroniot (Jaron)]

@bradymholt 've had the same experience.

I use hardware that communicates via I2C to HA and at first I wasn’t sure whether it would work with the 64-bit version. The documentation says:

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (1 GB, 2 GB and 4 GB model) 32-bit (32-bit is required for GPIO support)
• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB and 8 GB model) 64-bit

My hardware works fine, so I assume that the 64-bit version also supports GPIO.