No USB Unraid

[Aehryn]

Hello, I'm new to Unraid and have a System setup like every video suggests having Unraid on a USB stick and everything seems to be working.

However, I'm building a new System, I was hoping i could just have it on on a spare small SSD I had sitting around to work similar to a Thumbstick not because of a performance increase or anything but just to have everything inside the case. Is this something possible and would i see any difference on the matter? I've saw a few posts about the matter, some mixed as some saying its not something i should do, could do, and others saying its possible but explaining how the operating system works saying its a waste... Which i've not really understood fully... Very beginner level regarding all of this.

[apandey]

Most usb flash drives have a universally unique hardware level identifier. Unraid ties this UUID to your license. This mechanism is not available on SSD / HDDs

 

What you need to know is

* some usb drives don't have a unique id, in which case they may show up as not compatible (no id) or blacklisted (same id across drives) 

* in theory, it's possible to use a usb to another interface (ssd, SD etc) where the usb controller provides a unique id. In this case license will be ties to the usb adapter device. But there are practically no such devices with unique ids. Most just use some generic id's across devices

[Hoopster]

2 hours ago, Aehryn said:

I was hoping i could just have it on on a spare small SSD I had sitting around

The Unraid license is tied to a USB flash drive for several reasons:

1.  As explained above, many flash drives have unique identifiers (GUIDs) which makes it possible to associate the Unraid license to only the flash drive and no other hardware
2.  A flash drive is easily portable to another machine or an upgraded machine should you wish to run Unraid on different hardware.  The license and configuration live on the flash drive
3.  A flash drive is easily replaceable at little expense should the originally licensed flash drive fail
4.  The archives needed to load Unraid into RAM when the server boots require very little storage space making a flash drive the preferred "OS" storage medium rather than an SSD on which the great majority of its capacity would be wasted

Some Unraid users have installed internal USB headers (some motherboards may already have an internal USB port) such as this so they can have the Unraid flash drive inside the case.

[Frank1940]

10 hours ago, Aehryn said:

but just to have everything inside the case.

If this is why you want to use a SSD, have a look at a USB header module.  There are many variations of these devices but here is a typical one:

 

   https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Female-Motherboard-Header-Adapter-Dual/dp/B0878S6BD5/ref=sr_1_9?crid=NGT2HPS9XB5R&keywords=USB+header&qid=1682075819&sprefix=usb+header%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-9