Can I use a USB drive > 32GB?

[FreeMan]

In this section of the docs it reads

Quote

Obtain a new good quality USB flash device. This should be at least 1 GB and a max of 32GB (8GB or 16GB seem to be popular choices). USB2 is fine and anecdotally has proved more reliable.

Is 32GB really a max size limit?

 

It's starting to get difficult to find drives with smaller capacity, particularly physically small drives that one might be willing to leave hanging out the back of a server that's not in a rack. Especially from anything resembling a recognized brand.

 

Of course, my el cheapo 8GB drive from <random brand> has lasted many years in my backup server...

Edited February 27, 2023 by FreeMan

[itimpi]

3 minutes ago, FreeMan said:

In this section of the docs it reads

Is 32GB really a max size limit?

 

It is not an absolute limit, but it is normally recommended because of the requirement for the drive to be formatted as FAT32 which Windows cannot do natively on drives bigger than 32GB.  A 8GB drive is more than big enough so no point in spending more than is needed

[JonathanM]

4 hours ago, FreeMan said:

physically small drives that one might be willing to leave hanging out the back of a server that's not in a rack

Small drives are more apt to concentrate heat, causing a possible shortening of lifetime. Physically larger drives are preferred, metal casings help as well with heat dissipation.

 

I personally would never leave my Unraid licensed drive on the outside of the case, if the motherboard doesn't have an internal USB port already, I use a 10pin USB adapter on one of the motherboard internal USB headers and mount the drive inside that way.

[Lolight]

1 hour ago, JonathanM said:

I personally would never leave my Unraid licensed drive on the outside of the case, if the motherboard doesn't have an internal USB port already, I use a 10pin USB adapter on one of the motherboard internal USB headers and mount the drive inside that way.

@FreeMan

Make sure to get a USB 2.0 drive and plug it in this kind of or a similar 9-pin adapter.

This is the most compact one but you can use other kinds.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Lolight

[eicar]

On 2/28/2023 at 3:14 AM, JonathanM said:

I personally would never leave my Unraid licensed drive on the outside of the case, if the motherboard doesn't have an internal USB port already, I use a 10pin USB adapter on one of the motherboard internal USB headers and mount the drive inside that way.

I bought the SwissBit SFUI032GJ1AE2TO-I-LT-2AP-STD, which is a 32GB pSLC NAND eUSB drive that goes directly into the 10-pin USB header. Peace of mind. I'll use this 9-pin male to Type A male adapter cable to attach it to my Mac for Unraid installation.

Edited September 5, 2023 by eicar

[dboonthego]

On 2/27/2023 at 1:31 PM, FreeMan said:

It's starting to get difficult to find drives with smaller capacity

 

A flash stick that is greater than 32GB can be partitioned down to 32GB (or less) and used with Unraid.  You forfeit the additional storage capacity, but you weren't going to use it anyway...  Hopefully this helps someone in the future.

 

From Windows, open cmd.exe As Administrator.  This will wipe the contents of the flash drive and create a 32GB partition.

diskpart
list disk
select disk x (where x equals the flash device # from list disk output)
clean
create partition primary size 32768
format fs=fat32 label=UNRAID
active
exit

 

Copy the Unraid .zip contents to the flash and execute make_bootable.bat and you're golden.

Edited September 6, 2023 by dboonthego
include exit in diskpart steps

[itimpi]

3 hours ago, dboonthego said:

A flash stick that is greater than 32GB can be partitioned down to 32GB (or less) and used with Unraid.

An alternative is to use a third party utility such as Rufus to format the drive as it can format drives larger than 32GB to FAT32 so then there is no wasted space (although as mentioned this is probably not relevant with Unraid).

[dboonthego]

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

An alternative is to use a third party utility such as Rufus

That works too.  I suppose the diskpart route is native to Windows if someone wanted to avoid use of 3rd party tools.

[itimpi]

5 minutes ago, dboonthego said:

That works too.  I suppose the diskpart route is native to Windows if someone wanted to avoid use of 3rd party tools.

There is also the fact that on systems where it behaves itself I think the USB Creator tool can also partition and format drives larger than 32GB to FAT32?

 

[JonathanM]

5 hours ago, itimpi said:

There is also the fact that on systems where it behaves itself I think the USB Creator tool can also partition and format drives larger than 32GB to FAT32?

 

I haven't investigated, but I suspect some of the issues with the USB creator tool is that some USB sticks have the raw drive formatted, vs having a single partition. Creating said single partition manually could be a workaround.