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Is anyone using swissbit as Unraid boot drives? Curious whether the ambiguity has been resolved about whether they have unique GUID or not.

Some of us have done similar, using a USB to SSD enclosure as the boot device. Some of us have done similar, using a USB to SSD enclosure. I've really liked mine as well. The only potential problem I see is making sure the enclosures each report a unique GUID. (just like the problem with USB sticks) But it sure works nicely. Fast, ample storage space, easy backup and recovery to a spare SSD drive, etc.

Yes. This is the way. I've been using Rclone through User Scripts successfully since Geek Tools stopped being maintained. Just use the normal Rclone commands to use it.

@semtex41 Yes, I also had wanted to try the SwissBit drives, but contacted their support and was told they do not have unique GUIDs. (at least I think that's what they meant - their response could be interpreted ambiguously) See here: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/119052-psa-on-sandisk-usbs/page/8/#findComment-1395826

Update, after updating to Unraid 7.0+, NerdTools is no longer supported. Here is another way to get rclone (and almost anything else that was previously in NerdTools) installed:

There are published data about drives with SLC, TLC, MLC, QLC, PLC, ETC (can acronyms be puns?) available from reliable third parties. Reviewing them, if flash technologies are compared, SLC wins regarding reliability, error rate, environmental stress tolerance, and service life. Where that aligns with this forum thread is simply each users' decision of which technology to choose when they purchase a USB storage device to run Unraid from. This is no different than choice of processor (Xeon vs i7 vs AMD?), Cache drive selection (higher TBW number?), RAM (ECC or non-ECC?), storage drive selection (anyone else use Backblaze reliability data to assist selection?), and other important hardware considerations. Fortunately, one of Unraid's attractive features (one of many) is that it can run on low-spec hardware, and can recover gracefully from loss of disk(s). Anecdotal, but I've had three failures of the consumer-grade MLC and TLC USB storage devices that were previously recommended here and by the (helpful and awesome!) SpaceInvaderOne videos. My other hardware was comparatively higher-grade, and so I've since taken the recommendation to not skimp on the USB drive and have been very happy with SLC (fingers crossed). It is not clear to me (personally) why others who have pointed out similar to above are asked to remain civil. (Who knows? Perhaps I will be asked same after this post?) What IS clear to me is that each user simply chooses the risk they're willing to accept and that influences (or should influence) their decisions about which hardware to use. Some will accept more risk, some less. So for the USB storage device, consumer-grade USB storage devices look like they carry more risk of failure than their industrial counterparts. Perhaps many/most will have successful use of a consumer-grade drive for a long time. That's great! Others simply invest more money in lower likelihood of drive failure. No surprises here - one typically gets what they pay for.

I have tried to install or use the rclone plug-in and also docker a few times over the past few years and keep having problems (such as directly above) and I go back to using rclone through the NerdPack plugin. Here's a way to get rclone that has worked well for me :

Horrible Noob-like question here, but is there a recommended set of default settings that mostly just work? Asking because I had tried cache-dirs a number of years ago, fiddled with it quite a bit based on suggestions from this forum thread, and it just never worked (actually increased my CPU usage and disk spinups). My assumption is "user error" was at fault Would be interested to revisit the plugin if there was a base-level default settings that just works. Thanks, Ari

+1 this. Was happy with USB flash until two of the recommended name-brand USB drives used in Unraid failed in quick succession. Now I'm pretty happy with using a USB SSD with my Unraid. Don't know really whether it will last longer or not. But even if it does fail soon, that's a small "N" so will also be anecdotal and won't power anything statistically relevant. That said, to each their own on hardware choices. Recommendations based on prior success are just that. And useful as such. But glad people are testing out various options and posting here for the rest of the community to read.

Sounds fancy! How was the unraid activation, and how is its performance? 4GB seems like enough storage (I'm using 1.15GB with a lot installed and running).

This one?

Rclone is a good tool for that purpose. I used Nerd Tools, and within that enabled it's version of rclone. You can see my post above with recent instructions for how I was able to make rclone work.

Evidence posted here to the contrary. Whether this issue's origin is with cost savings, post-COVID supply chains, counterfeit drive sales, or something else, it remains an issue for users to find drives suitable for Unraid installation.

Yes, thanks, am sure. Also pretty sure my post was clear about this, but if clarification is still wanting: The rclone plugin for unraid (which this thread pertains to) stopped working for me and I was not able to remove and reinstall it successfully, or to get it to work again. Per previous recent posts it seems I have not been alone in experiencing this. Prior to that, the plugin also did not let me update versions (though it did show an update was available). Too bad! It worked well for me for a long time. So thanks for all work put into it. Tried the BinHex's rclone docker, but realized i could get by with using the rclone package NerdTools provided. I have provided above an example of what worked for me using NerdTools' rclone CLI, the rclone GUI it can provide, and User Scripts in case that is helpful to anyone else. Thanks again Waseh. Really appreciated your plugin and it worked great for me for a number of years until just a few months ago.

This Rclone plugin stopped working for me. I've found that I can install the NerdPack plugin in Unraid and use the rclone package it installs. This way I don't need to use the full docker etc, and NerdTools allows me to update rclone versions if I want to. In my use case, I need to periodically back up a remote FTP folder to my Unraid array. To do so, I install the NerdTools plugin for Unraid, ensure the Rclone library is installed through it. Then, set up web GUI for Rclone so you can use it to make config files. Run following command from Unraid: rclone rcd --rc-web-gui --rc-user=test --rc-pass=test --rc-addr http://[your unraid local ip]:11903 Then point browser to the URL the command's output gives you, or to http:[your unraid local ip]:11903 The rclone config should be for an FTP, on port 21, with the given username and password, and select "no" for both the implicit and explicit ftp options (or configure as you wish) Then use the User Scripts plugin to set up a script to run the following: #!/bin/bash echo "<div style=' width: 40%; -webkit-border-radius: 8px 8px 0 0; border-radius: 8px 8px 0 0; border: solid 1px #cccccc; background-color: #ffe88a; padding-left: 10px;'><br><b><font color='black' size='2'>Copyingremote FTP to local Unraid shared folder</font><b><br> </div>" #echo "=======================" #echo "Backing-up from:" #echo " <b><font color='blue'>[insert your FTP description here]"</b></font>" #echo "to:" #echo " <b><font color='blue'>"Local [insert unraid shared folder name here] folder</b></font>" echo "<div style='width: 40%; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 8px 8px; border-radius: 0 0 8px 8px; background-color: #ebebeb; margin-top: -14px; padding-left: 10px; padding-top: 6px;border: solid 1px #cccccc; '>Backing-up from: <br><b><font color='blue' size='2'>"[insert your FTP description here]"</b></font> <br>to:<br><b><font color='blue' size='2'>"[insert unraid shared folder name here]"</b></font><br> </div>" rclone copy "[the name you gave the profile in rclone]:/" "/mnt/user/[the unraid share folder to back up to]" echo "" echo "<div style='padding-left: 10px; margin-top: -14px; '><font color='green' size='4'><b>Done!</b></font></div>" ----------------------------------- Set the desired cron options for that user script so it runs in the background when you want it to. Done. Good luck.