# Olimex BAY-HDD-xxxGB
**URL:** https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023
**Category:** Hardware Owners Support
**Created:** [July 16, 2020, 11:15pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023 "2020-07-16T23:15:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hanstux](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/hanstux)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2020, 11:15pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/1 "2020-07-16T23:15:27Z")
Does the **BAY-HDD external disk to LIME and LIME2 Linux computers** fit with the HSK enclosure?
---
### Author:  [@Sunil](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/Sunil)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2020, 1:58am UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/2 "2020-07-17T01:58:07Z")
The BAY-HDD should work well with the Pioneer Home Server Kit enclosure. From the [website](https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/Home-Server/BAY-HDD-1000GB/): “Pioneer-FreedomBox-HSK supports BAY-HDD/SSD and when assembled the external storage is seen as additional disk.”
---
### Author:  [@Sunil](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/Sunil)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 2:29am UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/3 "2020-07-25T02:29:36Z")
I am now in possession of BAY-HDD generously sent to me by Olimex for testing. I can say first hand that Lime2 works well with the BAY-HDD:
- BAY-HDD has four holes to match exactly with the four holes that hold the Lime2 board. So, the two metal cases fit well together.
- There is a SATA port protruding from the BAY-HDD to plug-in exactly into the Lime2 board. The metal case covers that port.
- The power is provided by the board and no separate power supply is needed.
---
### Author:  [@hanstux](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/hanstux)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/4 "2020-07-25T02:43:47Z")
Sounds good. So I will order one. Thanx for sharing.
---
### Author:  [@MikaelB](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/MikaelB)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/5 "2020-07-25T15:21:43Z")
I also ordered the Bay HDD from Olimex. I would like to link my IKIWIKI blog directory to this external disk to save space on the SD card and protect the SD card from too many read and write accesses. Is this possible without any problems or does this limit the functionality of IKIWIKI?
---
### Author:  [@njoseph](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/njoseph)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 6:27pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/6 "2020-07-25T18:27:51Z")
It might be preferable to run the primary OS on the SATA disk instead of the microSD card. I would be interested in the following tests:
Copying the disk image of the microSD card to the SATA disk (e.g. using dd) and making it primary. Then the microSD card can be wiped clean and used for things Samba shares which are infrequently accessed. (Some people got 128 GB microSD cards during Christmas season last year, so the storage isn’t negligible as compared to the SATA disk).
---
### Author:  [@hanstux](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/hanstux)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 7:29pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/7 "2020-07-25T19:29:03Z")
There is a procedure fur the raspberry pi, which includes a tirmwareupgrade. I am afraid that you have to keep the boot partition on the SD on the lime2 board for now. But who knows. Maybe Olimex comes up with a firmware, that allows to boot from sata.
Seems ther is such a thing: [https://linux-sunxi.org/Bootable\_SPI\_flash](https://linux-sunxi.org/Bootable_SPI_flash)
But for a good reason, they wrote: “Another concern is the fact that the firmware updater needs to be at least a little bit intelligent and try to prevent the user from doing obviously stupid acts.” Unfortunately I am totally unfit on any coding tasks. I do flash lineage to my phones, but there always is a step by step procedure, and I am normally aware of what each step does.
Would be great tough, and a vast improvement for the great board. Speed and stability wise. At least that’s what they saw on the pi4.
---
### Author:  [@NickA](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/NickA)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/8 "2020-07-25T20:25:31Z")
> [@njoseph](#):
>
> Copying the disk image of the microSD card to the SATA disk (e.g. using dd) and making it primary.
Doing bitwise imaging of btrfs filesystems is something [firmly adviced against](https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Gotchas#Block-level_copies_of_devices), though, the btrfs code seems to chop the data if ever seeing two identical filesystem IDs.
But btrfs filesystems should allow to [stepover the system to another device](https://salsa.debian.org/freedombox-team/freedombox/-/issues/435#note_183334).
[https://fibrevillage.com/storage/552-how-to-add-or-remove-a-device-to-a-btrfs-file-system](https://fibrevillage.com/storage/552-how-to-add-or-remove-a-device-to-a-btrfs-file-system)
> **[BTRFS converting RAID1 to a single drive -
Kubuntu Forums](https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/general/miscellaneous/btrfs/67709-btrfs-converting-raid1-to-a-single-drive)**
>
> Dedicated to BTRFS questions and information
---
### Author:  [@hanstux](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/hanstux)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 8:29pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/9 "2020-07-25T20:29:59Z")
Do you just use it as extended memory, or did you get the board to boot from HDD/SSD?
---
### Author:  [@Sunil](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/Sunil)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 8:56pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/10 "2020-07-25T20:56:14Z")
In my setup, u-boot (about 1M) was on an SD card. Reset of the OS, including kernel, initrd, Grub, device trees etc, were on all on the HDD. This is using the [UEFI images](https://www.suse.com/media/article/UEFI%20on%20Top%20of%20U-Boot.pdf) we are about to build [[1](https://salsa.debian.org/freedombox-team/freedom-maker/-/merge_requests/196)] [[2](https://salsa.debian.org/freedombox-team/freedom-maker/-/merge_requests/195)].
---
### Author:  [@hanstux](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/hanstux)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/11 "2020-07-25T22:18:07Z")
Sounds promissing. I definitely plan to move the image to a SSD drive, once it is easy enough to geht it running.
---
### Author:  [@njoseph](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/njoseph)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2020, 10:43am UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/olimex-bay-hdd-xxxgb/1023/12 "2020-07-26T10:43:46Z")
I think we already did the boot from SATA disk experiment a couple of years ago on an older revision of the Lime 2 board. It is worth testing it again on the new rev. K