I will just replace it. I don't want to use USB sticks and find another way for license.

17 hours ago, etsi said:

I don't want to use USB sticks and find another way for license.

Great idea, just wait for that.

17 hours ago, etsi said:

I will just replace it. I don't want to use USB sticks and find another way for license.

Replace USB and restore backup - the most easiest experience in my life, just copy config folder and press one button from UI to register new USB UUID to license, that is fricking awesome.

On 6/16/2025 at 7:33 PM, etsi said:

It's so problematic with often USB fails.

Just anecdotally, finally replaced my first couple of Unraid flash drives, licenses were sold as a two pack at the time, and not because they failed, just because I'm tired of having to remove them to update Unraid, since they are not large enough for a GUI update:

And while it is true that current flash drives are not generally as good as a few years ago, you can still get good ones, I don't remember replacing an Unraid flash drive because it failed, and I have a lot of servers.

On 3/13/2025 at 1:41 PM, SpencerJ said:

Let's keep things civil please! 

 

I love the passion and strong opinions. @SpaceInvaderOne and I have plans to make an updated "best USB for Unraid" video so we'll be sure to reach out for recs and use this thread as a resource.

Hello,

I just lost my 6 months old Sandisk Cruiser. Tried 3 old USBs and all conked off with checksum error.

All recommendations so far are anecdotal. I was disappointed to see the mSATA turned out to be not working any more.

Eagerly waiting for your video....

18 hours ago, vb24pro said:

Hello,

I just lost my 6 months old Sandisk Cruiser. Tried 3 old USBs and all conked off with checksum error.

All recommendations so far are anecdotal. I was disappointed to see the mSATA turned out to be not working any more.

Eagerly waiting for your video....

I randomly had my Kingston DataTraveler Kyson 32GB USB 3.2 drive get blacklisted yesterday or the day before. I have been using it for:
2024.10.27 - installed

295 days can be converted to one of these units:

• 25,488,000 seconds

• 424,800 minutes

• 7080 hours

• 295 days

• 42 weeks and 1 day

80.82% of a common year (365 days)

So this being a yearly thing is getting annoying enough that I am going to try the swissbit industrial SLC drive.
https://www.mouser.com/c/embedded-solutions/memory-data-storage/storage/usb-flash-drives/?memory%20size=4%20GB&instock=y

If I have trouble using it, my backup will be a Samsung BAR Plus 64GB USB 3.1, but I will have to work around the larger size.
Smaller drives are impossible to find locally, so this makes locating compatible drives a big problem. Even Amazon is left with off brands or 3rd parties selling smaller drives. It seems like all of the smaller Samsung drives are off the market from official channels.

Another thought. This blacklist without an appeals process becomes a bit risky from a cost perspective, with an expensive drive.

On 8/18/2025 at 11:23 AM, semtex41 said:

I randomly had my Kingston DataTraveler Kyson 32GB USB 3.2 drive get blacklisted yesterday or the day before. I have been using it for:
2024.10.27 - installed

295 days can be converted to one of these units:

• 25,488,000 seconds

• 424,800 minutes

• 7080 hours

• 295 days

• 42 weeks and 1 day

80.82% of a common year (365 days)

So this being a yearly thing is getting annoying enough that I am going to try the swissbit industrial SLC drive.
https://www.mouser.com/c/embedded-solutions/memory-data-storage/storage/usb-flash-drives/?memory%20size=4%20GB&instock=y

If I have trouble using it, my backup will be a Samsung BAR Plus 64GB USB 3.1, but I will have to work around the larger size.
Smaller drives are impossible to find locally, so this makes locating compatible drives a big problem. Even Amazon is left with off brands or 3rd parties selling smaller drives. It seems like all of the smaller Samsung drives are off the market from official channels.

I got this working with the swissbit SFU34096E1AE1TO-C-MS-1B1-STD. Unfortunately the unraid media creation tool did not recognize the usb flash GUID, so I had to build it manually. Luckily the license key transferred successfully with the swissbit guid.

This worked. I used this process to get it booting from UEFI:
https://forums.unraid.net/topic/117868-solved-trouble-getting-started-cant-boot-to-unraid-usb/#findComment-1079115

This process did NOT work:
Rufus fat32 with the no-boot option, then running the make-bootable.bat (after copying the manual install unraid files to the flashdrive) did not work.

15 minutes ago, semtex41 said:

I got this working with the swissbit SFU34096E1AE1TO-C-MS-1B1-STD. Unfortunately the unraid media creation tool did not recognize the usb flash GUID, so I had to build it manually. Luckily the license key transferred successfully with the swissbit guid.

This worked. I used this process to get it booting from UEFI:
https://forums.unraid.net/topic/117868-solved-trouble-getting-started-cant-boot-to-unraid-usb/#findComment-1079115

This process did NOT work:
Rufus fat32 with the no-boot option, then running the make-bootable.bat (after copying the manual install unraid files to the flashdrive) did not work.

@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

@adoucette fwiw, I ordered two Swissbit drives at the same time. Each drive has a unique serial number printed on the outer drive body, but that number does not match what win11 has for the SerialNumber value using:
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Volume | Where-Object { $_.DriveLetter -eq "F:" } | Format-List *

For Unraid, the GUID appears to match the class ID_SERIAL_SHORT from:

udevadm info --query=all --name=/dev/sda | grep ID_SERIAL
This value partially matched my unraid key registration, in the "Flash Vendor ID + Product ID + Serial Number" format.
See: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/675-argh-how-to-get-flash-guid-from-windows

For clarification, the ID_SERIAL_SHORT value did not match the printed Swissbit Serial Number on the outside of the device.
Comparing the two drives, the ID_SERIAL_SHORT values are different, but only by 2 digits of the 16 digit value.
I hope it is unique enough.

Edited August 21, 2025Aug 21 by semtex41
added more context and clarification.

On 6/19/2025 at 1:28 PM, JorgeB said:

And while it is true that current flash drives are not generally as good as a few years ago, you can still get good ones, I don't remember replacing an Unraid flash drive because it failed, and I have a lot of servers.

You're exactly right.

Assuming the stick was made and purchased around 2007, it likely contains a large-node MLC flash chip—either 70nm or 56nm—paired with a low-power, thermally efficient controller

Those are indestructible in the Unraid environment.

No wonder they're still running in your machines.

Edited February 20Feb 20 by Lolight

FWIW I recently updated my flash drive to a ATP NanoDura 4GB USB 2.0 SLC drive and it's been working well. No problems with moving the license/GUIDs.

I bought it from DigiKey.

1 hour ago, jademonkee said:

FWIW I recently updated my flash drive to a ATP NanoDura 4GB USB 2.0 SLC drive and it's been working well. No problems with moving the license/GUIDs.

I bought it from DigiKey.

Those industrial types are built like tanks but cost big bucks.

If the price is no object, why not.

For the price-conscious of us there are still ample opportunities to score a real reliable MLC-based new old-stock on ebay for a very reasonable price.

Just need to know what to look for.

In general, just about every consumer flash stick produced before 2012 was built with MLC NAND.

The big downgrade had started around 2011-12 and continued through 2013 when just about every manufacturer of consumer sticks converted to the much cheaper but inferior TLC.

It's better to narrow the search to specific famous brands and models while staying within the 2006-2010 productions years.

For the most part it's pretty easy to tell the year of manufacture by looking at the copyright year printed on the packaging.

Edited February 20Feb 20 by Lolight

3 hours ago, Lolight said:

In general, just about every flash stick produced before 2012 had MLC NAND.

The older HP v150w USB 2.0 flash drives that are available at Office Depot supposedly had either SLC or MLC NAND. Newer ones, just have "standard flash NAND" whatever that means; probably TLC. I bought one about three years ago for use with Unraid and it has been great. I think they are actually made by PNY for HP. I have no idea if this is "old stock" but I doubt they are still manufacturing a lot of USB 2.0 flash drives. They are fairly inexpensive at $9 for a 16GB flash drive. Every once in a while they go on sale. I got mine for $5.

Edited January 24Jan 24 by Hoopster

8 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Newer ones, just have "standard flash NAND" whatever that means; probably TLC.

Would you be willing to take a readout from your stick(s)?

You could use Chipgenious and Flash Drive Information Extractor -

very simple apps to get relevant information.

Edited February 20Feb 20 by Lolight

@SpencerJ It looks like you've removed your post regarding the plans to update or remake the

the Spaceinvader's video "Testing to find the best flash drive".

So it's not in the plans anymore?

And if it's not then, at the very list, please update your recommendation at the start of this thread to not follow the outdated video or simply remove it.

I'm sorry for maybe sounding too harsh, but the testing criteria doesn't reflect the Unraid's environment and doesn't provide any good advice.

Today it has become useless or even worse, misleading.

It needs to be updated, or removed.

I'd say that the fact that the video in this thread is still up and being recommended as a valid guide on the selection of a reliable boot drive does a great dis-service to the existing users and new-comers.

I find it surprising that Limetech seems still to be oblivious to the situation even at this point and rather concentrating on the releasing of the new internal boot option.

Users need a better official guidance on the USB flash drive selection.

Having another choice for a boot drive is great, but it doesn't mean that the USB boot will or should go away anytime soon, at least I hope it wont.

Especially considering the presently skyrocketing flash memory prices, equally troublesome proliferation of NVMe SSD fakes and increasingly fragile modern NAND.

Edited January 26Jan 26 by Lolight

I removed the video from here. AFAIK, the suggested models listed and others added from users are still valid. If you have disagree or have others to add (with links), please let me know!

From what we're all seeing, manufacturers are degrading quality with, often without changing model numbers (a constantly changing target). This makes providing "official" recommendations tricky as much of the reporting or problems is anecdotal while others have no issues at all for years upon years. For this reason, we're working hard to provide alternate boot options.

Thank you for the feedback.

9 hours ago, SpencerJ said:

This makes providing "official" recommendations tricky as much of the reporting or problems is anecdotal while others have no issues at all for years upon years. For this reason, we're working hard to provide alternate boot options.

Some reporting problems and others of not having issues is the key.

Precisely because of the continuously cheapening and degrading quality of the consumer oriented USB drives.

But that's exactly why Limetech should have paid much more attention to the NAND trends and kept the users advised.

The alternative boot method is very welcome. But it's unclear at this point if it will not bring its own set of problems.

It might actually create the exact same situation, but now with counterfeit and low quality NVMe's being written to on the regular bases unlike the solely dedicated to the OS USB flash.

I think the best advice in this situation should be the following.

1. Stay away from the most often counterfeited brands like Sandisk, Samsung, Kingston, HP/Sony unless purchased at the brick-n-mortar store. Amazon is not safe!

   Instead, look for the safer in that regard Transcend and PNY.

2. Even better, do spend a little more and buy the still reasonably priced industrial brands like Kanguru which is thankfully has already been listed at the beginning of this thread.

3. If you're a bargain hunter you might want to check ebay where you can periodically find some great examples of the new-old-stock from the bygone era that will outlast the best non-industrial flash drives of today. (but that's its own huge topic). Don't do that unless you know exactly what to look for.

4. Stay with the USB 2.0 and USB 2.0 only - for both the drive and the port. Though, no choice with Kanguru - USB 3.X only, but at least they do have a stable Bill of Materials and use a quality, cool running controller, the part that produces all that heat.

5. Another option is to obtain USB reader that is known to have a GUID and use it with an industrial or high endurance MicroSD.

6. USB DOM is another option. I haven't looked into that yet.

All these options have already been discussed in some scattered form on this side and everywhere else.

What Limetech should have done is to organize that info into an easily read and comprehensible to newbies guide.

Instead of keeping the just deleted video up for years, allowing the unsuspecting newbies, and even veterans to fall into the trap of counterfeited products, or if even genuine, still unknowingly buying the low quality NAND combined with overheating USB 3.X

No wonder the USB boot has earned such an abysmal reputation in the community.

I understand that Limetech didn't have much capacity to spare in the prior years, but now with the increased hiring I'd think they can find some capacity to look into the topic and create an easy read "official" guide.

Also, as a community, I thing we should start another thread(s) dedicated to the topics I've mentioned above.

Like "Industrial USB flash" , "Old Tech finds on ebay", "MicroSD readers with GUID", "USB DOM" etc.

Where the users can share their findings and also post readouts lifted from their devices, like the type of NAND, Chip P/N, Controller P/N, Max Current and year of production if purchased new-old-stock.

All very useful information that would be very helpful to others in choosing the higher quality of product.

Quality as in potential longevity of a particular model.

I have a few examples of the newer and older USB sticks.

I have already posted an example of a simple readout in this thread.

I will post more detailed readouts later when I have time, sometime closer to the end of the next month.

But if someone here is willing to do that sooner, I can reference the tools that can be used in lifting that info.

The tools for the NAND, controller and Max Current information: ChipGenius and Flash Drive Information Extractor.

Also the H2testw (write and read enabled) is useful for detecting fakes and assessing general writing and reading performances and reliability.

Edited February 23Feb 23 by Lolight

43 minutes ago, Lolight said:

What Limetech should have done is to organize that info into an easily read and comprehensible to newbies guide.

You are clearly passionate about this and seem to know a lot. Is it possible you can create a community guide, maintain it, and LT could post it in the appropriate area. Would be pretty helpful to everyone.

Just thoughts anyway.

19 minutes ago, Veah said:

Is it possible you can create a community guide

@Veah

I've made an attempt in the form of the "USB Flash Primer" thread.

Frankly, I don't see much of interest.

Apparently, everyone is so hyped and hopeful that the new internal boot option would magically eliminate every reliability concern associated with the USB licensing model that they decided there was no need to care about their existing USB boot devices.

Edited March 6Mar 6 by Lolight

On 10/20/2024 at 11:01 PM, SteveScott said:

Searched for this issue and found this thread. Wish I had looked here earlier. I am almost certain that my SanDisk is not counterfeit, it came from B&H Photo which has reliable sources. I did notice that it came with some additional capabilities and software installed, it wasn't a clean disk.

I've seen this before on USB drives, you can just ignore that guff and wipe the drive.

Spent some time looking into the USB DOM (Disk-On-Module)

@SpencerJ Why isn't it the highly recommended, go-to booting device?

I don't understand why it hasn't been mentioned anywhere in the Unraid docs?

It should be promoted as the preferred booting device.

I see just few posts on this forum and that's it.

I used to think that it's kinda of an exotic device with some complex install steps reserved only for the tinkerers.

Because it is nowhere to be found in the docs and/or discussed on the forum, or anywhere else.

In reality - all installation steps for the DOM are exactly the same as with the regular USB stick.

As an extra all you need is the adapter cable for the initial Unraid burn.

After the install It plugs into the motherboard's USB header instead of an external USB port.

That's all.

The 8GB USB DOM (2.54mm) sounds like the absolutely perfect, super-reliable, tailored for the Unraid environment booting solution.

Also very affordable.

There's no need to overspend on the more expensive industrial USB flash sticks.

The DOM and the cable altogether - $25 shipped on ebay.

It checks all boxes:

1. Unique GUID

2. MLC Industrial NAND

3. Power protection

4. SMI controller with global wear leveling

5. 19-30 TBW endurance

6. 85°C heat resistance

It's designed to be plugged in and left on for 10+ years.

On ebay search for the 9-Pin USB Motherboard Male Header to Single USB 2.0 Type A Male Cable and 8GB 9-Pin USB Flash Drive Disk On Module DOM (Big 9-pin)

Edited January 29Jan 29 by Lolight

Well, it's been many years since I used a USB drive with unRAID...

I had a 500GB 2.5" Seagate hard drive, one of those that came in a USB 3.0 enclosure... I took it apart, removed the mechanical hard drive, and replaced it with a 120GB SSD that I bought years ago on Amazon for €20...

It's fantastic. It's been connected to a USB 3.0 port on the server for years, the updates are incredibly fast, everything works perfectly, and since it's an SSD, I can keep the unRAID registry on it if I want, which won't break down for many years despite the constant writes.

But the best part is that I can have backups of unRAID on other drives because the GUID is stored in the USB enclosure. So I save a backup of unRAID, put it on any other SATA drive, turn off unRAID, and swap one drive for the other, and everything works the same. It's never failed me. But I've tested it, and unRAID boots on any drive I plug into that enclosure because... The USB case has the GUID. 👌

1 hour ago, Lolight said:

Spent some time looking into the USB DOM (Disk-On-Module)

@SpencerJ Why isn't it the highly recommended, go-to booting device?

I don't understand why it hasn't been mentioned anywhere in the Unraid docs?

It should be promoted as the preferred booting device.

I see just few posts on this forum and that's it.

I used to think that it's kinda of an exotic device with some complex install steps reserved only for the tinkerers.

Because it is nowhere to be found in the docs and/or discussed on the forum, or anywhere else.

In reality - all installation steps for the DOM are exactly the same as with the regular USB stick.

As an extra all you need is the adapter cable for the initial Unraid burn.

After the install It plugs into the motherboard's USB header instead of an external USB port.

That's all.

The 8GB USB DOM (2.54mm) sounds like the absolutely perfect, super-reliable, tailored for the Unraid environment booting solution.

Also very affordable.

There's no need to overspend on the more expensive industrial USB flash sticks.

The DOM and the cable altogether - $25 shipped on ebay.

It checks all boxes:

1. Unique GUID

2. MLC Industrial NAND

3. Power protection

4. SMI controller with global wear leveling

5. 19-30 TBW endurance

6. 85°C heat resistance

It's designed to be plugged in and left on for 10+ years.

On ebay search for the 9-Pin USB Motherboard Male Header to Single USB 2.0 Type A Male Cable and 8GB 9-Pin USB Flash Drive Disk On Module DOM (Big 9-pin)

imho it is a nice solution with a DOM, never was thinking about.

Do you mabe found a pinout of the header to make a diy cable? I wonder if both USB2 connections are used for the DOM.

@PoMpIs didn't know before, that this is working... good to know.

The weak point of this solution might be the USB to m2 converter from the case, not the SSD.

Backup is not a point, because this is realy easy on any device. The price of a good enclosure might be a k.o. kriteria.

59 minutes ago, PoMpIs said:

Well, it's been many years since I used a USB drive with unRAID...

I had a 500GB 2.5" Seagate hard drive, one of those that came in a USB 3.0 enclosure... I took it apart, removed the mechanical hard drive, and replaced it with a 120GB SSD that I bought years ago on Amazon for €20...

It's fantastic. It's been connected to a USB 3.0 port on the server for years, the updates are incredibly fast, everything works perfectly, and since it's an SSD, I can keep the unRAID registry on it if I want, which won't break down for many years despite the constant writes.

But the best part is that I can have backups of unRAID on other drives because the GUID is stored in the USB enclosure. So I save a backup of unRAID, put it on any other SATA drive, turn off unRAID, and swap one drive for the other, and everything works the same. It's never failed me. But I've tested it, and unRAID boots on any drive I plug into that enclosure because... The USB case has the GUID. 👌

Some of us have done similar, using a USB to SSD enclosure as the boot device.

1 hour ago, PoMpIs said:

Well, it's been many years since I used a USB drive with unRAID...

I had a 500GB 2.5" Seagate hard drive, one of those that came in a USB 3.0 enclosure... I took it apart, removed the mechanical hard drive, and replaced it with a 120GB SSD that I bought years ago on Amazon for €20...

It's fantastic. It's been connected to a USB 3.0 port on the server for years, the updates are incredibly fast, everything works perfectly, and since it's an SSD, I can keep the unRAID registry on it if I want, which won't break down for many years despite the constant writes.

But the best part is that I can have backups of unRAID on other drives because the GUID is stored in the USB enclosure. So I save a backup of unRAID, put it on any other SATA drive, turn off unRAID, and swap one drive for the other, and everything works the same. It's never failed me. But I've tested it, and unRAID boots on any drive I plug into that enclosure because... The USB case has the GUID. 👌

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.