January 19, 20242 yr I've been looking at the documentation and forum to see what the recommendations for flash drives are these days. As best as I can see, the most recent recommendations are still: USB 2, not USB 3 At least 2GB but no more than 32GB Favorite: Samsumg BAR Plus 32GB These strike me as rather dated, and the 32GB BAR is basically unobtanium these days, unless you want used or to pay a heavy premium over larger sizes. Are there more current recommendations? Thanks! Edited January 19, 20242 yr by jhyler
January 19, 20242 yr Community Expert https://forums.unraid.net/topic/119052-psa-on-sandisk-usbs/ Edited January 19, 20242 yr by ConnerVT
April 8, 20242 yr On 1/19/2024 at 6:12 PM, ConnerVT said: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/119052-psa-on-sandisk-usbs/ You posted a link to a post I'm confident the OP knows about (who doesnt at this point), which points out the very recommendations they're saying are no longer available, from a test two years ago. How helpful 👏 FYI: the TOP THREE from that post for the US are NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Go ahead and click the links. Edited April 8, 20242 yr by EmersonSC
April 8, 20242 yr On 1/19/2024 at 3:23 PM, jhyler said: I've been looking at the documentation and forum to see what the recommendations for flash drives are these days. As best as I can see, the most recent recommendations are still: USB 2, not USB 3 At least 2GB but no more than 32GB Favorite: Samsumg BAR Plus 32GB These strike me as rather dated, and the 32GB BAR is basically unobtanium these days, unless you want used or to pay a heavy premium over larger sizes. Are there more current recommendations? Thanks! What did you end up with? I'm still trying to find something that foots UNRaids bill, that isnt junk. I got a Samsung one that was close to their specs but its already dying and am desperate to find something reliable.
April 8, 20242 yr 3 minutes ago, EmersonSC said: What did you end up with? I'm still trying to find something that foots UNRaids bill, that isnt junk. I got a Samsung one that was close to their specs but its already dying and am desperate to find something reliable. I'm using this thumb drive https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D7P4SY4. No issues so far with 5 months of runtime.
April 8, 20242 yr Community Expert 10 hours ago, EmersonSC said: On 1/19/2024 at 6:12 PM, ConnerVT said: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/119052-psa-on-sandisk-usbs/ You posted a link to a post I'm confident the OP knows about (who doesnt at this point), which points out the very recommendations they're saying are no longer available, from a test two years ago. How helpful 👏 If you read through the thread, you will see it is more about the current state of the USB Flash drive market. There has been a large number of counterfiet flash drives flooding a number of the major Internet marketplaces, making it impossible to just say "Buy this brand and model...". As I've recommended several times in that thread (and in countless others, all asking the same question) is to buy from a place that has a tightly controlled supply chain, and look at what may be considered 2nd-tier brands (such as Kingston, PNY, Transcend, etc.).
June 25, 20242 yr Issue with the Samsung thumb drives Probably this isn't the right forum for this but I am currently using two of the Samsumg BAR Plus 32GB on two Unraid Server. Both not older than a few months but since a few weeks I get an error on boot that prevent both system from booting up completely. 1. Server is completley new. (Asrock Z690 Steel Legend + I5-13600K) - Unraid OS 6.12.10 2. HP Optiplex (older Desktop PC) - Unraid OS 6.12.10 Error something like this: device offline error, dev sda1, sector XXXXXX Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block XXXXX, async page read Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block XXXXX, async page read Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block XXXXX, async page read Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block XXXXX, async page read mount: /boot: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device. cannot mount /dev/sda1 – Press ENTER to reboot Only changing the USB Port resolves this issuw for this time. Am I doing something wrong? Did I miss something? Or am I just unlucky with both Samsung thumbdrives? Are there any other recommendations? Thanks in advance!
June 25, 20242 yr Community Expert I would try downloading the zip file for your release and then extract the bz* type files overwriting those on the flash drive. This frequently seems to help for some reason.
June 26, 20242 yr Thanks for your reply, unfortunetely I dont really know what to do. Should I download the Backup ZIP of the USB drive and than do what exactly?
June 26, 20242 yr Community Expert 1 minute ago, howtobanana said: Thanks for your reply, unfortunetely I dont really know what to do. Should I download the Backup ZIP of the USB drive and than do what exactly? I would suggest getting the download from here although the backup zip is probably fine as well.
June 26, 20242 yr Ok, and than I only have to replace the bz* files? I also noticed that I have hundrets of those FSCK.REC files on the drive. Don't know what they do.
June 26, 20242 yr Community Expert You get the FSCK files as a result of corruption being detected and a repair attempted. They can normally be deleted. If you continue to get them it suggests a flash drive problem. 1 hour ago, howtobanana said: Ok, and than I only have to replace the bz* files? Yes - those are the archives from which Unraid is unpacked into RAM during the boot process.
June 26, 20242 yr Ok, so with the many FSCK files it really looks like the USB drive is broken? So I guess I should definetely replace it?
June 26, 20242 yr Community Expert 1 hour ago, howtobanana said: Ok, so with the many FSCK files it really looks like the USB drive is broken? So I guess I should definetely replace it? At the price of flash drives and the problems and lost time that a margin/bad one can create, I would be figuratively running to the nearest electronics store for a replacement. I would be looking for a name-brand full size USB2 flash drive between 8GB and 32GB. Full size because they dissipate heat better and USB2 because they tend to run cooler.
August 6, 20241 yr Quote I would be looking for a name-brand full size USB2 flash drive between 8GB and 32GB. It's worth noting that what you are describing is effectively impossible to find as of mid-2024 in a major metropolitan area in the United States. Everything is USB 3.x and 64GB+. It looks like there are some USB 2.0 sold online, but one must pay a premium over their USB 3.x counterparts.
September 16, 20241 yr My SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB Flash-Laufwerk 16GB USB 2.0 died yesterday, are there any good suggestions for working usb 3.+ drives as usb 2.0 is hard to get these days (as @Superiorem mentioned). Thanks!
October 5, 20241 yr For anyone else having a hard time finding flash drives that are GPT instead of MBR: I cant say that this will work for every flash drive, but I was just able to convert a new Verbatim 16GB USB2 drive that I took a chance on (it came as MBR) using Diskpart in windows 11, run as administrator. All I had to do was "Select Disk X", X being whatever number the disk is. Then use the command "Clean". This clears the drive completely. After that simply use "Convert GPT". It successfully converted my flash drive to GPT and has a GUID. Unraid installer recognizes it and is creating a boot disk as we speak.
October 6, 20241 yr On 8/5/2024 at 11:21 PM, Superiorem said: It's worth noting that what you are describing is effectively impossible to find as of mid-2024 in a major metropolitan area in the United States. Everything is USB 3.x and 64GB+. It looks like there are some USB 2.0 sold online, but one must pay a premium over their USB 3.x counterparts. Best buy is still selling these. I bought some and as some of the reviews state, they're labeled as 16GB but are actually 32GB.
October 24, 20241 yr I just purchased this one, as my log was showing sda errors, but the Smart status is fine. Sandisk Cruzer Blade 32 GB USB Flash Drive SDCZ50-032G-B35, Black https://a.co/d/cbxsh9V
February 7, 20251 yr Also using Sandisk Cruzer Blade 32 GB. They are $5ea from my local officeworks. You can buy 4 of them for the price of one samsung bar.
March 9, 20251 yr Im using Samsung FIT Plus MUF-64AB - USB flashdrive - 64 GB - USB 3.1 MUF-64AB/EU No problem unraid 2021
March 11, 20251 yr Swissbit Industrial SLC 2 GB. 5 years and counting. I expect the drive will outlive me.
April 2, 20251 yr Had a cable issue earlier today showing 2 drives running into issues and was using syslog to check everything was working. Down the rabbit hole I went and discovered my sda is now cranky and spitting out those same errors as listed above. Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 Sense Key : 0x3 [current] Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 ASC=0x11 ASCQ=0x0 Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x28 28 00 00 e6 e6 41 00 00 07 00 Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: critical medium error, dev sda, sector 15132225 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 7 prio class 2 Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130177, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130178, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130179, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130180, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130181, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130182, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sda1, logical block 15130183, async page read Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 Sense Key : 0x3 [current] Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 ASC=0x11 ASCQ=0x0 Apr 2 14:24:56 FS kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x28 28 00 00 e6 e6 40 00 00 01 00 Which lead to what thumbdrive I was using, which is a Verbatim Store-N-Go 8 GB, it's the size of your thumbnail and disappears in to a USB port. Best part (or worst?), it's been kicking since Dec 2015! Servers has been powered 24/7 since that time. Thank you for the recommendations for a new thumbdrive and what needs to be done, just had to share the Verbatim company!
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