Pi5 vs CM5 for Home Assistant | Home Assistant | Page 1

pearl wren Sep 30, 2025, 10:55 AM

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Firstly yes I want to use a pi due to the minimal power consumption. Yes SFF business PCs get close. No I still don’t want a SFF pc.

With that said - is the EMMC better than an industrial SDcard for writing logs and storing data eg temp, power consumption that comes from running HA? I can return my pi5 today for a full refund if the CM5 is better. I’d be running it on a Waveshare Mini Base board (A). Google suggests that the EMMC is faster and more liable, but SD cards are quite convenient.

Thanks!

somber hawk Sep 30, 2025, 11:09 AM

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3W of the pi vs 6W for a Mini PC. Anyways this board seems to have a NVMe slot. How about using a NVMe SSD with your pi5?

pearl wren Sep 30, 2025, 11:13 AM

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Mini PCs aren't quite so cheap in my experience in the UK. I'm considering nvme also - requires an adapter board of US$25. Will prob do that in the long term, but aiming for cheap and reliable in the short term first

somber hawk Sep 30, 2025, 11:15 AM

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Both have their pros and cons. I'd imagine the eMMC to be faster, live longer and be more reliable. You also get health data.

pearl wren Sep 30, 2025, 11:16 AM

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Yes agreed on speed and long life. What do you mean by health data?

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As in you can see if your drive is failing I guess

somber hawk Sep 30, 2025, 11:17 AM

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It's not quite SMART as with proper storage but you can get life time information. Looks something like this in the HA GUI

pearl wren Sep 30, 2025, 11:18 AM

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Aha, thanks!

somber hawk Sep 30, 2025, 11:19 AM

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The HA Green uses eMMC too, for example, so HA(OS) should be designed to not kill yours. I'm not sure if the eMMC modules advertise any TBW data.

pearl wren Sep 30, 2025, 11:21 AM

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Oooh yes I'd forgotten Green uses eMMC, so that's a good point. I suppose because they don't advertise EMMC there is an argument for going straight to removable storage w/ backups (SSD preferred but sd also ok)

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I think cm5 can fallback from emmc to sd...
I already have a few SD cards so that is cheaper. However there is something really cool about the CM5 that is hard to ignore, I'm struggling to be rational about it!

cedar tusk Sep 30, 2025, 1:44 PM

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pearl wren I think cm5 can fallback from emmc to sd... I already have a few SD cards so th...

Don't use SD cards if you value your data and time 😅

pearl wren Sep 30, 2025, 2:59 PM

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Haha I do! Decided to return the pi and get a cm5

solid jetty Sep 30, 2025, 4:29 PM

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There's no HA OS image for that board though. https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/releases
You'll run a container install?

#Pi5 vs CM5 for Home Assistant