This is a great change, but I hope some thought is being put in for user friendly disaster recovery... maybe the ability to use the your old usb as a recovery device (and backup target), and/or a mode where you could pull down unraid connect backups.

Lots of things to consider

1 - my smallest SSD is 500 GB, making an 8GB boot partition would not be a problem, but, if I use the rest of the storage for something else, when will the wear and tear cause the SSD to fail? I've had two fail in my Unraid server after six years of use.

2 - Using two current SSDs in a redundant pool with 8GB flash partitions is certainly something to consider. Can the remaining storage space (492 GB in my case) still be used independently in separate pools?

3 - as mentioned by @tjb_altf4 , I really like the idea of my current USB flash drive as a redundant backup boot device in case of SSD problems and being able to boot from either device.

4 - does moving to an internal boot device mean the license is now tied to some GUID associated with that device? If I change motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc. but use the same internal SSD, I assume that would boot Unraid on the new hardware just like it currently does if using the same USB flash drive? Of course, I assume that moving to internal boot would make the current USB boot flash a non-licensed device?

Edited January 17Jan 17 by Hoopster

7 hours ago, Hoopster said:

2 - Using two current SSDs in a redundant pool with 8GB flash partitions is certainly something to consider. Can the remaining storage space (492 GB in my case) still be used independently in separate pools?

They would need to be in the same pool, but it doesn't have to be a mirror.

7 hours ago, Hoopster said:

I really like the idea of my current USB flash drive as a redundant backup boot device in case of SSD problems and being able to boot from either device.

You can still boot using the flash drive, as long as it has the current config.

7 hours ago, Hoopster said:

4 - does moving to an internal boot device mean the license is now tied to some GUID associated with that device?

I believe that is the plan.

Thanks for the answers @JorgeB

I will likely keep booting from the USB flash drive on my main server, but, I have a couple of other servers on which I can experiment more with internal boot. My current USB boot flash has been going strong for over 10 years. Maybe it is bound to fail soon.

Having more boot options is great, but, in my case, I don't yet see a compelling reason to use internal boot but the potential redundancy of boot device is nice.

I’ve been seeing quite a few comments in various threads regarding possible issues booting from NVMe/SSD drives related to expected failures. I’m just wondering why a partition on a traditional spinner can’t be used for booting or why it wouldn’t be a good idea?

I'm not sure what other users failure modes were on USB, but mine were always linked to boot partition corruptions (and were recoverable with a reformat).
I always wondered if simply moving to a more resilient filesystem would improve failure rates.

Would formatting usb with a different filesystem be possible under new internal boot?

27 minutes ago, wgstarks said:

I’m just wondering why a partition on a traditional spinner can’t be used for booting

It can be used, as long as it's a pool. Array devices are currently not supported for booting; I'm not sure if LT plans to change that for the future.

16 minutes ago, tjb_altf4 said:

Would formatting usb with a different filesystem be possible under new internal boot?

You can use one or two flash drives (>8GB) for a boot pool, they will be formatted with ZFS.

Just note that you still need to leave the current flash drive for licensing, or use another one, it can't be part of the boot pool, or move the license to TPM if available.

Will be possible to use 100% of pool space for boot partition? I'd like to have dedicated disk for boot separated entirely from data

1 hour ago, bane said:

Will be possible to use 100% of pool space for boot partition?

It should be in the near future, possibly with beta.2

9 hours ago, JorgeB said:

It should be in the near future, possibly with beta.2

That would be great! 👍

Just to answer this here as I found it in a google search - you now can with 7.3.0

dedicated boot pool - uses entire disk

I'm migrating mine now from usb to a 16gb Intel Optane 🤞

this makes my toes tingle. Like, almost enough to drag me back.

well done, LimeTech team!