mounting unraid OS into a ssd drive.

[audiveras]

Greetings!

I would like to know how can I make a bootable ssd so I will not run the unraid OS from a USB 3.0 drive.

[Squid]

It's not supported.

 

The OS itself runs completely from RAM, so there is basically zero benefit to booting from a device other than a USB flash device.  (And as a plus it frees up a SATA / nvme slot for storage)

 

[itimpi]

3 minutes ago, audiveras said:

Greetings!

I would like to know how can I make a bootable ssd so I will not run the unraid OS from a USB 3.0 drive.

Not possible.  
 

Note that the Unraid boot process unpacks Unraid binaries from the archives on the USB drive and then Unraid runs from RAM, and during normal running there are only a small number of accesses to the USB drive relating to configuration information.

[Trunkton]

Found this guidance from 10-11 years ago that had success.

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/14719-solved-installed-to-ssd-license-file-on-a-usb-drive/

 

The ideas there should apply towards the same outcome but I don't know if they still work today without someone testing and confirming it. You'd still keep a USB attached but only for retrieving the license file.

Current slackware cpio package (matches latest RC7 slackware) https://slackware.pkgs.org/15.0/slackware-x86_64/cpio-2.13-x86_64-3.txz.html

Edited May 7, 2022 by Trunkton

[sheldz8]

what is a pendrive and is it possible to boot from this device, I watched a video and they connected the unraid boot device somewhere on the motherboard.

[Frank1940]

3 hours ago, sheldz8 said:

what is a pendrive and is it possible to boot from this device, I watched a video and they connected the unraid boot device somewhere on the motherboard.

Read here:

 

      https://forums.unraid.net/topic/126601-sata-dom/

 

and here

 

     https://forums.unraid.net/topic/21950-usb-to-memory-card-adaptor-guid-fixed-or-dynamic-collecting-modelsoptions/page/4/#comments

 

I have used two Kingston Microcard readers in my Unraid servers for years but they are no longer available! 

 

Just be careful as if they don't have an unique GUID they can be blacklisted.  Most cheap devices (including some counterfeit USB flash drives!) don't have unique GUID numbers because of the cost for registration of those numbers. 

[etegration]

2024 - time to let us decide how we want to boot off a ssd or even NVME and run the OS from ram please. thumbdrives are totally useless and so unreliable. 

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, etegration said:

2024 - time to let us decide how we want to boot off a ssd or even NVME and run the OS from ram please. thumbdrives are totally useless and so unreliable. 

Tom hinted in the Uncast video interview that the USB flash drive licensing scheme "might be expanded in the future."  What that means is as of yet unclear.

 

I have been using the same USB flash drive on one of my servers for over 10 years so I would not call that unreliable.  Having the license and configuration tied to an easily portable USB drive has made it possible to change hardware (MB, CPU, RAM, etc.) on my servers 5+ times using the same license and configuration with the same array/pool drives. 

 

For me (and this is my opinion only), I like the USB flash drive as the repository for the license, configuration and OS file which load into RAM.  Having those on an SSD/NVMe drive makes that far less portable or more to deal with when making hardware changes.