I struggled to convert my installation from sdcard to SSD so I thought I’d report my findings.
tl;dr I edited an existing script to prep my pi3b+ so the official Supervised Installer would work. It got my pi up and running on SSD with no sdcard when the direct image wouldn’t work.
Hassio Wouldn’t Boot from SSD
I have an old SSD and eluteng adapter. Booting raspbian wasn’t a problem. I assumed writing the hassio image to the SSD would be trivial like it had been for some people. However, my PI never booted. I tried bootimage and timeouts on an sdcard. Nothing worked. Connecting an hdmi cable produced no output either so there was nothing to go off.
Supervised Installer
My last option to get full hassio running was the supervised installer. I had read different posts on it being deprecated or not but since the repo was alive I thought I’d try. The supervised installer install all of the “appliance” components of hassio on a compatible system. You get full functionality including addons on a compatible base image that you provide. I found a nice script to provide that base:
Prepper / Installer Script = Provide Base for Supervised Installer
The installer script takes a raspberry pi, installs the requirements for the official Supervised Installer and installs HASSIO using said installer. What you get is the full experience in terms of HASSIO. BUT you are responsible for the OS. It also means you have more control. This is the perfect solution for me because it works and I know what’s going on a little more than etching an image and praying it works with no recourse if it doesn’t.
Disclaimer
I forked and updated the installer script to prep my pi and install hassio via the Supervised Installer script. My contribution is basically 0.
Hopefully this helps some people. I was about to give up…