Balena Flasher how to create multiple partitions?

Product support
1

Hi,

How can I create multiple partitions on the SSD when flashing a balena device using the balena flasher tool? For example the SSD is 250 GB but we want to keep 10GB for other uses.

Thanks

3

Hi @rossm, are you talking about balena Etcher? I believe etcher does not manipulate partitions at all. So if you have a .img or .iso with specific partitions and sizes on it, it will do a byte for byte write of the image on to the storage media.

5

@shaunmulligan Hi, we are using an Intel NUC and inserting a USB with the balena image onto it, however the balena image uses the whole partition on the SSD without us having any control over it. Is there a way we can control how much of the SSD gets used when flashing the Intel NUC?

8

Hi @rossm, it’s currently not possible to control partitions in this case, but we do have some discussions about enabling this. Would you elaborate a bit more on the use case: how would you like to use the extra partitions? Thanks!

10

Hi @roman-mazur, I would like another partition on the SSD to be able to persist data between application moves (for example using the named volumes in the docker-compose wipes the data when our devices move between applications).

11

If you are moving between applications retaining data is unfortunately not supported (see https://www.balena.io/docs/faq/troubleshooting/faq/#why-does-data-disappear-when-i-move-a-device-between-applications)

13

@robertgzr Is there a way to create another partition though?

14

Please refer back to Roman’s response. There is no way to create custom partitions via the official flashing methods.