diff --git a/fastembed/common/model_management.py b/fastembed/common/model_management.py
index ea42687..bf490be 100644
--- a/fastembed/common/model_management.py
+++ b/fastembed/common/model_management.py
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ from huggingface_hub.utils import (
 from loguru import logger
 from tqdm import tqdm
 from fastembed.common.model_description import BaseModelDescription
+from fastembed.common.onnx_external_data import link_external_data
 
 T = TypeVar("T", bound=BaseModelDescription)
 
@@ -584,6 +585,19 @@ class ModelManagement(Generic[T]):
 
         return model_dir
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def _link_onnx_external_data(model: BaseModelDescription, model_dir: Path) -> Path:
+        """Links the external data of `model` right after its download, see link_external_data.
+
+        Loading the model links it as well, but linking it here also covers lazy_load=True, e.g.
+        in a Docker build step, where links made by a later step would copy the files into a new
+        image layer. A failure, e.g. in a read-only cache, is reported when the model is loaded.
+        """
+        if model.model_file.endswith(".onnx"):
+            with contextlib.suppress(OSError):
+                link_external_data(model_dir, model.model_file, model.additional_files)
+        return model_dir
+
     @classmethod
     def download_model(cls, model: T, cache_dir: str, retries: int = 3, **kwargs: Any) -> Path:
         """
@@ -645,7 +659,7 @@ class ModelManagement(Generic[T]):
                 if (resolved_path / model.model_file).exists() and all(
                     (resolved_path / file).exists() for file in extra_patterns
                 ):
-                    return resolved_path
+                    return cls._link_onnx_external_data(model, resolved_path)
             except CorruptedCacheError:
                 force_download = True
             except Exception:
@@ -667,7 +681,7 @@ class ModelManagement(Generic[T]):
                 attempt_kwargs = {**kwargs, "force_download": True} if force_download else kwargs
                 force_download = False
                 try:
-                    return Path(
+                    model_dir = Path(
                         cls.download_files_from_huggingface(
                             hf_source,
                             cache_dir=cache_dir,
@@ -675,6 +689,7 @@ class ModelManagement(Generic[T]):
                             **attempt_kwargs,
                         )
                     )
+                    return cls._link_onnx_external_data(model, model_dir)
                 except _HF_DOWNLOAD_ERRORS as e:
                     logger.error(
                         f"Could not download model from HuggingFace: {e} "
diff --git a/fastembed/common/onnx_external_data.py b/fastembed/common/onnx_external_data.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..47fb763
--- /dev/null
+++ b/fastembed/common/onnx_external_data.py
@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+"""Loading ONNX models with external data from a huggingface_hub cache.
+
+onnxruntime>=1.24 refuses external data that, once symlinks are resolved, is located outside of
+the directory of the model file, and of the directory the model file resolves to (a fallback of
+1.24.2, pyproject.toml excludes 1.24.0 and 1.24.1). Since huggingface_hub 1.32, a snapshot is made
+of symlinks into a blob store shared by the whole cache and sharded by hash, where a model and its
+data may resolve into different directories. Then the model and its data are hardlinked into
+`ONNX_SNAPSHOTS_DIR` of the repo cache, laid out as in the snapshot, which takes no extra space.
+"""
+
+import contextlib
+import os
+import shutil
+from pathlib import Path
+
+# Next to `snapshots` in the cache of a huggingface_hub repo: `onnx_snapshots/<revision>/...`
+ONNX_SNAPSHOTS_DIR = "onnx_snapshots"
+
+
+def link_external_data(model_dir: Path, model_file: str, additional_files: list[str]) -> Path:
+    """Returns a path of `model_file` from which onnxruntime can load its external data.
+
+    Args:
+        model_dir (Path): The directory with the model files, e.g. a huggingface_hub snapshot.
+        model_file (str): The path of the ONNX file, relative to `model_dir`.
+        additional_files (list[str]): Other files of the model, relative to `model_dir`,
+            among which its external data.
+
+    Returns:
+        Path: The ONNX file to load, `model_dir / model_file` unless it had to be linked.
+
+    Raises:
+        OSError: If the files had to be linked, but couldn't be, e.g. in a read-only cache or
+            on a filesystem without hardlinks.
+    """
+    model_path = model_dir / model_file
+    snapshots_dir = model_dir.parent
+    repo_dir = snapshots_dir.parent
+    if snapshots_dir.name != "snapshots" or not repo_dir.name.startswith("models--"):
+        return model_path  # not a huggingface_hub cache, there is no place of ours to link into
+    if not model_path.exists():
+        return model_path  # onnxruntime reports it more clearly than a failed hardlink would
+
+    # external data is located relative to the model file, so it can't be anywhere else
+    data_paths = [
+        path
+        for path in (model_dir / file for file in additional_files)
+        if path.parent.is_relative_to(model_path.parent) and path.exists()
+    ]
+    # onnxruntime accepts data within these, as in the caches of older huggingface_hub versions
+    real_model_dirs = (
+        os.path.realpath(model_path.parent),
+        os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(model_path)),
+    )
+    if all(
+        any(Path(os.path.realpath(path)).is_relative_to(d) for d in real_model_dirs)
+        for path in data_paths
+    ):
+        return model_path
+
+    links_dir = repo_dir / ONNX_SNAPSHOTS_DIR
+    for path in (model_path, *data_paths):
+        _link_file(path, links_dir / model_dir.name / path.relative_to(model_dir))
+
+    # the links keep the blobs on disk, so drop those of revisions deleted from the cache
+    for revision_dir in links_dir.iterdir():
+        if not (snapshots_dir / revision_dir.name).is_dir():
+            shutil.rmtree(revision_dir, ignore_errors=True)
+
+    return links_dir / model_dir.name / model_file
+
+
+def _link_file(source: Path, link: Path) -> None:
+    """Makes `link` a hardlink to the file `source` resolves to, unless it already is one."""
+    target = os.path.realpath(source)
+    try:
+        if os.path.samefile(link, target):
+            return
+        # a link to a blob downloaded again since, or a copy of the cache without its hardlinks
+        link.unlink()
+    except FileNotFoundError:
+        pass
+    except OSError:
+        # e.g. such a copy on a read-only filesystem, which works all the same
+        if os.path.getsize(link) != os.path.getsize(target):
+            raise
+        return
+    link.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+    # os.link is atomic, so if the link exists, another process loading the model just made it
+    with contextlib.suppress(FileExistsError):
+        os.link(target, link)
diff --git a/fastembed/common/onnx_model.py b/fastembed/common/onnx_model.py
index aa80dfc..5057d95 100644
--- a/fastembed/common/onnx_model.py
+++ b/fastembed/common/onnx_model.py
@@ -6,9 +6,11 @@ from typing import Any, Generic, Iterable, Sequence, Type, TypeVar
 import numpy as np
 import onnxruntime as ort
 
+from loguru import logger
 from numpy.typing import NDArray
 from tokenizers import Tokenizer
 
+from fastembed.common.onnx_external_data import ONNX_SNAPSHOTS_DIR, link_external_data
 from fastembed.common.types import OnnxProvider, NumpyArray, Device
 from fastembed.parallel_processor import Worker
 
@@ -78,8 +80,8 @@ class OnnxModel(Generic[T]):
         cuda: bool | Device = Device.AUTO,
         device_id: int | None = None,
         extra_session_options: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
+        additional_files: list[str] | None = None,
     ) -> None:
-        model_path = model_dir / model_file
         # List of Execution Providers: https://onnxruntime.ai/docs/execution-providers
         available_providers = ort.get_available_providers()
         cuda_available = "CUDAExecutionProvider" in available_providers
@@ -124,9 +126,29 @@ class OnnxModel(Generic[T]):
         if extra_session_options is not None:
             self.add_extra_session_options(so, extra_session_options)
 
-        self.model = ort.InferenceSession(
-            str(model_path), providers=onnx_providers, sess_options=so
-        )
+        model_path = model_dir / model_file
+        link_error: OSError | None = None
+        try:
+            model_path = link_external_data(model_dir, model_file, additional_files or [])
+        except OSError as e:
+            # e.g. a read-only cache, which onnxruntime<1.24 loads from all the same
+            link_error = e
+
+        try:
+            self.model = ort.InferenceSession(
+                str(model_path), providers=onnx_providers, sess_options=so
+            )
+        except Exception:
+            if link_error is not None:
+                logger.warning(
+                    f"Could not link the files of {model_path} into {ONNX_SNAPSHOTS_DIR}: "
+                    f"{link_error}. onnxruntime>=1.24 refuses external data that resolves "
+                    "outside of the model directory, as in a huggingface_hub>=1.32 cache. "
+                    "Download the model with fastembed into a writable cache_dir on a "
+                    "filesystem with hardlinks, or delete it from the cache and download it "
+                    "again with HF_HUB_DISABLE_SHARED_BLOBS=1."
+                )
+            raise
         if "CUDAExecutionProvider" in requested_provider_names:
             assert self.model is not None
             current_providers = self.model.get_providers()
diff --git a/fastembed/image/onnx_embedding.py b/fastembed/image/onnx_embedding.py
index 4fd813a..fba875f 100644
--- a/fastembed/image/onnx_embedding.py
+++ b/fastembed/image/onnx_embedding.py
@@ -137,6 +137,7 @@ class OnnxImageEmbedding(ImageEmbeddingBase, OnnxImageModel[NumpyArray]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     @classmethod
diff --git a/fastembed/image/onnx_image_model.py b/fastembed/image/onnx_image_model.py
index 68a7251..9f002fa 100644
--- a/fastembed/image/onnx_image_model.py
+++ b/fastembed/image/onnx_image_model.py
@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ class OnnxImageModel(OnnxModel[T]):
         cuda: bool | Device = Device.AUTO,
         device_id: int | None = None,
         extra_session_options: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
+        additional_files: list[str] | None = None,
     ) -> None:
         super()._load_onnx_model(
             model_dir=model_dir,
@@ -67,6 +68,7 @@ class OnnxImageModel(OnnxModel[T]):
             cuda=cuda,
             device_id=device_id,
             extra_session_options=extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=additional_files,
         )
         self.processor = load_preprocessor(model_dir=model_dir)
 
diff --git a/fastembed/late_interaction/colbert.py b/fastembed/late_interaction/colbert.py
index 81ebed6..9115115 100644
--- a/fastembed/late_interaction/colbert.py
+++ b/fastembed/late_interaction/colbert.py
@@ -221,6 +221,7 @@ class Colbert(LateInteractionTextEmbeddingBase, OnnxTextModel[NumpyArray]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def _load_tokenizer(self, model_dir: Path) -> None:
diff --git a/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colmodernvbert.py b/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colmodernvbert.py
index 8ed6b27..f8fe015 100644
--- a/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colmodernvbert.py
+++ b/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colmodernvbert.py
@@ -133,6 +133,7 @@ class ColModernVBERT(LateInteractionMultimodalEmbeddingBase, OnnxMultimodalModel
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
         # Load image processing configuration
diff --git a/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colpali.py b/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colpali.py
index 24a4399..017906e 100644
--- a/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colpali.py
+++ b/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/colpali.py
@@ -128,6 +128,7 @@ class ColPali(LateInteractionMultimodalEmbeddingBase, OnnxMultimodalModel[NumpyA
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def _post_process_onnx_image_output(
diff --git a/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/onnx_multimodal_model.py b/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/onnx_multimodal_model.py
index cc1b1ae..bc76364 100644
--- a/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/onnx_multimodal_model.py
+++ b/fastembed/late_interaction_multimodal/onnx_multimodal_model.py
@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@ class OnnxMultimodalModel(OnnxModel[T]):
         cuda: bool | Device = Device.AUTO,
         device_id: int | None = None,
         extra_session_options: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
+        additional_files: list[str] | None = None,
     ) -> None:
         super()._load_onnx_model(
             model_dir=model_dir,
@@ -74,6 +75,7 @@ class OnnxMultimodalModel(OnnxModel[T]):
             cuda=cuda,
             device_id=device_id,
             extra_session_options=extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=additional_files,
         )
         self._ensure_tokenizer()
         assert self.tokenizer is not None
diff --git a/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_cross_encoder.py b/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_cross_encoder.py
index 63f8fb6..10af1f0 100644
--- a/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_cross_encoder.py
+++ b/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_cross_encoder.py
@@ -171,6 +171,7 @@ class OnnxTextCrossEncoder(TextCrossEncoderBase, OnnxCrossEncoderModel):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def rerank(
diff --git a/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_model.py b/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_model.py
index 3ed09fc..6768d00 100644
--- a/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_model.py
+++ b/fastembed/rerank/cross_encoder/onnx_text_model.py
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ class OnnxCrossEncoderModel(OnnxModel[float]):
         cuda: bool | Device = Device.AUTO,
         device_id: int | None = None,
         extra_session_options: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
+        additional_files: list[str] | None = None,
     ) -> None:
         super()._load_onnx_model(
             model_dir=model_dir,
@@ -43,6 +44,7 @@ class OnnxCrossEncoderModel(OnnxModel[float]):
             cuda=cuda,
             device_id=device_id,
             extra_session_options=extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=additional_files,
         )
         self._ensure_tokenizer()
         assert self.tokenizer is not None
diff --git a/fastembed/sparse/bm42.py b/fastembed/sparse/bm42.py
index 9f99bc1..b4685a8 100644
--- a/fastembed/sparse/bm42.py
+++ b/fastembed/sparse/bm42.py
@@ -160,6 +160,7 @@ class Bm42(SparseTextEmbeddingBase, OnnxTextModel[SparseEmbedding]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
         self.stopwords = set(self._load_stopwords(self._model_dir))
diff --git a/fastembed/sparse/if_splade.py b/fastembed/sparse/if_splade.py
index 9947d92..4e1c5bd 100644
--- a/fastembed/sparse/if_splade.py
+++ b/fastembed/sparse/if_splade.py
@@ -160,6 +160,7 @@ class IfSplade(SparseTextEmbeddingBase, OnnxTextModel[SparseEmbedding]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def _load_idf(self) -> dict[int, float]:
diff --git a/fastembed/sparse/minicoil.py b/fastembed/sparse/minicoil.py
index 109d8a1..0aabad7 100644
--- a/fastembed/sparse/minicoil.py
+++ b/fastembed/sparse/minicoil.py
@@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ class MiniCOIL(SparseTextEmbeddingBase, OnnxTextModel[SparseEmbedding]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def _load_tokenizer(self, model_dir: Path) -> None:
diff --git a/fastembed/sparse/splade_pp.py b/fastembed/sparse/splade_pp.py
index 562ebcd..1183f21 100644
--- a/fastembed/sparse/splade_pp.py
+++ b/fastembed/sparse/splade_pp.py
@@ -142,6 +142,7 @@ class SpladePP(SparseTextEmbeddingBase, OnnxTextModel[SparseEmbedding]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def embed(
diff --git a/fastembed/text/onnx_embedding.py b/fastembed/text/onnx_embedding.py
index 3187673..c112218 100644
--- a/fastembed/text/onnx_embedding.py
+++ b/fastembed/text/onnx_embedding.py
@@ -388,6 +388,7 @@ class OnnxTextEmbedding(TextEmbeddingBase, OnnxTextModel[NumpyArray]):
             cuda=self.cuda,
             device_id=self.device_id,
             extra_session_options=self._extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=self.model_description.additional_files,
         )
 
     def token_count(
diff --git a/fastembed/text/onnx_text_model.py b/fastembed/text/onnx_text_model.py
index 74e9ab6..289d599 100644
--- a/fastembed/text/onnx_text_model.py
+++ b/fastembed/text/onnx_text_model.py
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ class OnnxTextModel(OnnxModel[T]):
         cuda: bool | Device = Device.AUTO,
         device_id: int | None = None,
         extra_session_options: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
+        additional_files: list[str] | None = None,
     ) -> None:
         super()._load_onnx_model(
             model_dir=model_dir,
@@ -76,6 +77,7 @@ class OnnxTextModel(OnnxModel[T]):
             cuda=cuda,
             device_id=device_id,
             extra_session_options=extra_session_options,
+            additional_files=additional_files,
         )
         self._ensure_tokenizer()
 
diff --git a/tests/test_text_onnx_embeddings.py b/tests/test_text_onnx_embeddings.py
index 7a2220b..5110a30 100644
--- a/tests/test_text_onnx_embeddings.py
+++ b/tests/test_text_onnx_embeddings.py
@@ -226,6 +226,17 @@ def test_query_embedding(model_cache) -> None:
             ), model_desc.model
 
 
+def test_external_data_model(model_cache) -> None:
+    # Its weights are ONNX external data, which onnxruntime>=1.24 doesn't load straight from a
+    # huggingface_hub>=1.32 cache, see fastembed.common.onnx_external_data
+    model_name = "ibm-granite/granite-embedding-small-english-r2"
+    with model_cache(model_name) as model:
+        embedding = next(iter(model.embed(["hello world"])))
+
+    canonical_vector = CANONICAL_VECTOR_VALUES[model_name]
+    assert np.allclose(embedding[: canonical_vector.shape[0]], canonical_vector, atol=1e-3)
+
+
 def test_quantized_model_reports_onnxruntime_requirement(monkeypatch) -> None:
     """Old onnxruntime only implements 4-bit MatMulNBits, the error should say so."""
     monkeypatch.setattr(