WHERE THIS TEST ENDED
Fletcher boots from the SSD afterward, with the old card kept as a fallback. There's no before-and-after speed test, so the dashboard's smoother feel is an impression, not a measured result, and a reboot with the microSD physically removed is still an open check.
- MicroSD card
- Clone to SSD enclosure
- Reboot check
- Dashboard on SSD
How it was done
The enclosure holds the 256 GB NVMe drive I already owned and connects it through USB. That gives the drive a separate connection while the AI HAT uses the Pi's PCIe connection.
Rather than install Fletcher again from scratch, I copied the existing system with rpi-clone. The September 11 build record puts the copy at about 21 GB in 6 minutes 42 seconds. After rebooting, the check that mattered was which disk held the running system: the Pi reported its root filesystem on the USB SSD. The hand tracker was running at about 30 frames per second, and Home Assistant was up.
What the result means
Fletcher now boots from the SSD. The old card was kept as a fallback. Storage for model files and the rest of the system moved with the clone; this did not install new AI models or make the existing models more capable by itself.
In the clip I say the dashboard feels smooth, then immediately question whether the drive changed that. There is no before-and-after speed test here, so I would not put a performance number on it. The recorded result is a successful migration with the desk running afterward.
Still to check at this stage
The build note still had a reboot with the microSD card physically removed on its checklist. It had verified that the running system was on the SSD, but had not closed that separate check.
About this breakdown
Matched to this original TikTok, including its spoken captions. The result above describes this episode; later work is identified separately.
Breakdown checked September 6, 2026.