Tmpfs to prevent SD failure

Configuration
1

Hi everyone and Merry Xmas,
while installing mitemp_bt custom components (https://github.com/custom-components/sensor.mitemp_bt) I noticed that author suggests to use RAM to store temp files; this to prevent HA recurrent SD writing that cause SD to fail.
Sine I’m a noob with a lot of doubts, I hope someone here can help me:

  • is that trick (using tmpfs) a real solution for the SD card corruption?
  • How can I modify fstab on hassio installed on raspberry? It seems SSH doesn’t allow this kind of modification (I tried twice but fstab lost the modification after reboot).

Thanks!

2

Hi, did you work out how to modify the fstab on hassio?
im currently trying to do the same thing but i cant find any info on how to do it

3

To some degree: yes. tmpfs uses RAM instead of a disk. So simply put, there is nothing that can break, because RAM is made to written and erased constantly. The downside of this solution: tmpfs uses RAM instead of a disk. And compared to disks RAM is limited / expensive. Whatever amount of data you store on a tmpfs will be missing for the system to utilize. So if you had a 200MB tmpfs filled to the limit, that’s 200MB less RAM for Home Assistant to work with. Given that a Pi doesn’t have a lot of RAM in the first place, I personally wouldn’t follow that path.
Oh, and once you turn off the Pi all data is lost. So it doesn’t even really make sense. If you don’t need persistent data you might as well just turn off the recorder component. That would probably even boost performance a bit.