USB Boot on Raspberry Pi 4

Installation Home Assistant OS
21

Thanks for the link, Dave. I think that is only for RPI3 thought. RPI4 is what I am looking for since it can use high speed USB3.

22

Hi, yes I did realize that you wanted to use a Pi4, I was just pointing out that the standard image did not work when booting from USB on a Pi3, so I guess it will be the same for a Pi4

At the time I remember looking at the source code of the USB Boot code, and there where not too many changes.

Hopefully somebody will come up with a solution for the Pi4. I have always been amazed that a USB boot option has never been looked at by the HA team.

Re Dave

1 Like
23

In theory it was added official support for the Raspberry Pi 3 in Hass.os version 3.0: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/12/17/hassos-release-3/#raspberry-pi

Only needed was to add the program_usb_boot_mode to the boot partition because the Pi3 has not eeprom.

But I understand what you say, maybe is not enough the new Kernel, and it needs something more. I suppose that once the Eeprom goes out of beta, it will have more interest for everybody.

1 Like
24

Home Assistant OS updated again, version 4.9. I don’t think it will work now but who knows…

25

I’m waiting for the possibility to boot from USB. Because then I can for example connect larger disk copy movies and use plex plugin for Hass os.

It is really painful for me that we can’t mount external USB HDD.

26

New hassOS released yesterday, has anyone had luck getting the Pi4 to USB boot with version 4.10 of hassOS?

27

I doubt it works. The changelog is a regression of the raspberry pi 4 kernel:

28

Thanks for the reply @McGiverGim… Alas I will continue the wait for native hassOS USB boot on pi4 :confused:

1 Like
29

HI
let me know when it will be available :slight_smile:
Thanks
David

30

If you haven’t do that… go to https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/issues/746 and add a :+1: on the first post in the issue :wink:

2 Likes
31

Just finished installing the new HassOS 5.0 build straight to an SSD then booted on a 4Gb RPi4 and it works perfectly!

Huge thanks to the HA team, great work!!

32

@BradAU yes, it seems it was added here to the dev version:

Can you inform here what steps did you take to boot from USB? I’m specially interested in this sentence of the PR:

To avoid mmc0: timeout waiting for hardware interrupt without SD card add sd_poll_once=on to dtparam in config.txt .

Thanks!

33

Regarding config.txt. It is only needed if you want to get rid of log messages regarding the SD-card polling.
It is not essential in any way.

1 Like
34

I haven’t edited the config.txt file as yet, I just followed a post on the RPi forums to update the bootloader, flashed the HassOS image to the SSD using Etcher and it booted up as normal, just much faster.

35

I’m trying to make it work without luck…

  • I have updated the eeprom without problem using a raspbian image and a sdcard.
  • I have installed the pre-release of Hassio 5.0 in the SSD and connected it to the raspberry.
  • Something seems wrong. The led in the SD is off and I can’t access to the Home Assistant interface.

Maybe my SSD is incompatible? Is an M-Sata with a USB 3.0 to M-Sata case. I think remember I had access to it as external unit from the raspberry before, so I was sure it will work.

36

I confirm that if I connect the external usb after the raspberry has started (with a Home Assistant installation using the SD card) the light in the SSD turns on. So it seems it has enough power to handle it. Maybe I have forgotten some step or my SSD need some special configuration?

I have installed the latest eeprom from the “stable” channel. Nothing more.

37

It seems the BOOT_ORDER was wrong in the EEPROM. It seemed that installing the new EEPROM must change this by default, but for some reason it did not. I have changed it manually to 0xf41 and now the ssd lights on. Time to play to see if I can start Home Assistant.

EDIT: If someone is interested… now it is working. Boot from USB working for raspberry pi 4 and Hass.io. BUT ONLY FOR 64bit Hass.io. The recommended version is 32bit so at this moment you must decide between using the recommended version or boot from SSD.
In the documentation appears that only 64bit is compatible at this moment. In the PR is commented and it appears like a bug in the u-boot used by Hass.io.

EDIT AGAIN: The system has become totally inestable in less than 24h. It seems it is almost totally unresponsive and some things (like zigbee) are unavailable. I can connect with ssh, but is very, very slow, impossible to execute some commands. A power cycle did not fix it. I don’t know if it has been the SSD, the 64bit version of Hassio or simply a coincidence, but at this moment I will return back to the SD some time more…

2 Likes
38

Would love to see this fixed. Running off the USB3 port is almost 3x faster than using the MicroSD.

39

Update, its installing now. I had a Wyze RF reader that was causing me to use slightly too much power with my USB SSD drive. I unplugged that for the moment and hassio is installing.

40

I am getting the same, very sluggish, automation delays and numerous errors in the log stating sensors taking longer than expected etc.

I ended up deleting my db file and rebooting, this fixed it for now?

Tried to open the home-assistant.log but I got an error saying it was too large to open in notepad,

Also tried doing am automated db purge overnight

image
image694×361 9.33 KB

That did not improve matters

my yaml

recorder:
  purge_keep_days: 1
  exclude:
    entities: !include exclude.yaml

Could anyone provide me with any pointers on how to debug my setup?