So a couple of months ago as far as I could tell my usb drive died because unraid wouldnt boot in giving an error, so I purchased a new one and put a backup of my server onto it and transferred over the key. Now today my server refused to boot up again, so I assumed it was another dead boot drive. I did try switching usb ports, etc. I was a bit frustrated but I was gonna get another usb drive and just do the backup. I had an idea, I figured i would check the drive, because I couldn't believe that it was already dead. I did every test imaginable on the drive and it all came through just fine, I also checked the authenticity of the drive using samsung magician, came back clean. so i took a risk and tried to flash my unraid backup onto the same drive, since as far as I know, your key is tied to the guid of the drive, so a fresh reinstall shouldnt harm anything. Well to my surprise, it wanted to do a key transfer and was showing a new guid, I took the plunge and did a key transfer. The drive is now currently working just fine in the server, multiple restarts later. Arn't guid's tied to the hardware? How could it possibly change? I also noticed my bios settings had been reset, could this have something to do with a dead cmos battery? How in the world would that affect the guid of the drive though? I plan on replacing the cmos battery when I get a new one, but I still figured I would make a post here if anyone has any ideas. Thanks

5 hours ago, Vulkandr said:

Arn't guid's tied to the hardware?

It is, and when the GUID on the flash drive starts changing, it's not a good sign, if it happens again, I would replace it.

On 7/11/2025 at 1:51 AM, JorgeB said:

It is, and when the GUID on the flash drive starts changing, it's not a good sign, if it happens again, I would replace it.

Well since I have the time to prepare for the potential inevitable failure, what drive would you recommend? A Kingston USB 2.0 I had sitting around unused was blacklisted so I couldn't use that, I also have an unopened SanDisk Cruzer Blade 8GB USB 2.0 which i was considering using when this Samsung Bar Plus 64gb dies.

My SanDisk Cruzer 8GB works great for Unraid.

Personally I like the Sandisk Cruzer Blade 32GB, one of the few USB 2.0 flash drives still available, and in my experience they tend to be more reliable.

I just had my usb GUID change also. [EDIT... Just found original registration. My guid is correct and unraid is wrong. ]

Pretty sure the unraid help guys don't believe that happened and think I changed the USB drive though. I was instructed to put the USB with the correct guid back in.

My guess is it suggests my usb is dying but in the meantime I have no server. Ilive a long way from retail or even delivery.

If USB drives are this unreliable it seems dumb that the whole system relies on it. and that an impossibly old type of key is recommended.

If the lifespan is expected to only be a few years then at least there should be system warnings to replace it.

Edited December 1, 2025Dec 1 by J1mB0b