Hi Gang!
===== THIS IS KEY INFO IF YOU WANT TO BOOT AND RUN HA FROM SSD =====
First post and I’m on a mission to give more than I take so after having a NIGHTMARE with installing HA on Pi4B on SSD in a NESPi case I thought I would open my account with what I wish I had known last week…
ISSUE: I installed HA on SSD but had issues with crashing during/after boot, slow boot/speed, console showed MANY SQUASHFS errors amongst others
FIX: The (old and best?) NESPi case has a JMicron JMS578 chipset which does not play well with RP4 in USP mode, flash the firmware to “Non USP” version or add a “quirk” to /boot/cmdline.txt
So, what’s this all about in simple terms? The chipsets in USB/SSD adaptors don’t always work well with RP when in fast (UASP - USB Attached SCSI Protocol) mode and you can fix it by forcing it to run in slower (BOT - Bulk Only Transport) mode.
You fix by flashing the firmware on the USB/SSD to a version that doesn’t use USAP OR add a “quirk” in cmdline.txt which tells the OS not to use USAP even if it seems available. All the details are in the links below from the boffins that left such great breadcrumbs for me.
Word is, SSD adaptors with “Asmedia” chipsets work fine but not so with “JMicron” - like the old NESPi case uses.
If you have the Origional NESPi case this page is your friend:
https://wagnerstechtalk.com/nespi4/
Note the guy (Jon) even hosts the firmware file you need as Retroflag seem to have removed it from their website, see the section specifically about running from SSD.
If you don’t know if you have the old or the new version or which is best you might want to watch this: New Vs Old. Nespi 4 Raspberry Pi 4 Case. - YouTube
I chose the old version as:
- It has a fan, new one not
- It has USB3, new one USB2
- It has Gigabit Ethernet not 10/100
More background, very interesting if you do or DONT have a NESPi case specifically:
> Hardcore info on how UASP can make disk IO 50% faster:
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/uasp-makes-raspberry-pi-4-disk-io-50-faster
> Generally great advice on fixing Pi storage adaptor issues:
https://jamesachambers.com/fixing-storage-adapters-for-raspberry-pi-via-firmware-updates/
> Some nice comforting basics confirmed on the official site:
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=245931&sid=9ebc375a433b995ade2f087a6113dbdb
Right now, I don’t know if the new, and in many ways inferior, NESPi case resolves the UASP issue, even if it did I would still pick the old one.
Also, I noticed a possible fix for JMicron JMS578 in the in the link above “Generally great advice on fixing Pi storage adaptor issues” which SEEMS to say that if you flash the firmware on the controller you can make JMS578 work with RP and UASP.
If you have any info on these questions I would be interested. If I have helped (or messed up) please also let me know so I can ensure I play my part well in this community.
Cheers everyone!
Si