#How to add USB drive to Home Assistant (and how to reference it)

8 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

latent axle
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I just added a usb drive to my home assistant VM (running using virtualbox with USB passthrough for the drive)
I am trying to get access to the drive for Scrypted NVR to do its thing, but I do not know how to reference the drive in the configuration.

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for reference, when I say usb drive, I mean a USB HDD enclosure (2TB). It is already formatted and has an ext4 fs on it

somber gale
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It's not supported.

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Hi @latent axle ,
There is no supported way to connect a second drive directly. You need to consider one of the supported methods.
Mounting drives can VERY much break your system. If the drive mounted brings the backup size bigger than available, for instance, the HA drive will fill up and the system will crash. If you plug in a memory stick, for instance, with malware, that would cause all kinds of problems.
https://img.shields.io/badge/UN-SUPPORTED-red?labelColor=red&color=gray.png
That is why this is not supported and if you do find a way to do it, you will be using an unsupported version of HAOS and you will be on your own when it breaks. It is absolutely not recommended behavior, however it is not impossible to do.
Plus if you really want a drive mounted, install core or another install method where you are in control of the OS.
https://www.home-assistant.io/common-tasks/os/#using-external-data-disk
https://www.home-assistant.io/more-info/free-space/.
https://www.home-assistant.io/common-tasks/os/#copying-your-backups-to-another-location.

Using the supported Samba Add-on is the supported and much safer way to transfer files. You can also use one of the SSH Terminal Add-ons to do this.

latent axle
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Seems odd that we’re happy to mount NAS drives, but not locally attached drives. Speed anyone? But if that’s the case, that’s the case.

kindred matrix
inland zenith
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Not good, intended to move my external WD-elements with all music to HA to be used in MusicAssistant. I have a seperate box running Jellyfin and thought I could retire that one and have one device less.
As for the reasons why;

  • It would be good housekeeping if the backups can avoid the external storage drive
  • Plugging in a memorystick requires someone to break into my house which is much more of a problem and likely done to steal things not add memorysticks to computers
    They should mention this at the USB specification of the HA Green, especially now that MA is promoted more and more.