Support USB-attached SSD/HDD as native backup location

[a-Datana]

Describe your core improvement

Home Assistant should support USB-attached storage devices, such as external SSDs or HDDs, as native backup locations.

The goal is to make a directly connected USB drive selectable under Settings > System > Backups, the same way other backup locations can be selected, without requiring a NAS, SMB share, cloud provider, custom add-on, SSH/root access, or unsupported host modifications.

This would be especially useful for Home Assistant OS installations on mini PCs, Raspberry Pis, Home Assistant Green/Yellow, or similar appliance-style setups where users may not own a NAS but still want backups stored outside the internal system disk.

Current limitations

Currently, Home Assistant supports local backups on the system, Home Assistant Cloud, backup integrations, and network storage locations. However, a USB drive directly connected to the Home Assistant host cannot be configured as a first-class backup destination through the normal UI.

For users without a NAS or cloud backup provider, the practical alternatives are often workarounds such as:

• manually downloading backups
• exposing a USB drive through a router as SMB storage
• using third-party add-ons
• using unsupported mount/udev/root-level modifications
• moving the whole data disk instead of using the USB drive only for backups

These workarounds are harder to understand, easier to misconfigure, and less reliable for normal appliance-style Home Assistant OS users.

Technical benefits

Native USB backup support would improve Home Assistant’s backup system by:

• giving users a simple local backup target without requiring NAS or cloud storage
• reducing the risk of losing all backups when the internal disk or SD card fails
• keeping backups fully local for users with privacy or connectivity concerns
• making recovery after bad updates, failed migrations, or storage failures easier
• reducing reliance on unsupported host modifications and third-party add-ons
• making backup retention, encryption, and restore behavior more consistent across backup locations

Ideally, Home Assistant should detect USB storage devices, allow the user to explicitly select one as a backup target, show free space and health/status information, warn if the drive is missing, support safe eject, and apply normal backup retention rules per location.

Additional context

No response

[m3gg3]

+1 for this

[SpuQ]

I made an integration that enables using a local USB drive for storing backups: https://github.com/SpuQ/HomeAssistant-BackupStick. Still in an early stage, though, but seemingly working stable.

[Florian-Kranz]

works like a charm, thanks!

[frenck]

FYI native support for local disks is landing soon™

[SpuQ]

Thanks for informing! Keep me posted!