Been using the plugin Backup/Restore Appdata to backup my flash drive.

I have two UnRaid servers. One just has the internal boot on one cache drive (shared with Data Partition). The other Unraid server has two internal boot drives on two cache drives (shared with Data Partition).

What is the recommended app/plugin or solution for backing them up?

Are you looking to just back up the config, or the data partition data as well? I don't think you need to back up the boot drive specifically with TPM licensing.

Just the "Internat Boot" - Boot Partition.

The boot partition is still at /boot, so that plugin should still work.

Better method would probably be Unraid Connect to backup to Unraid cloud.

The "should" and "probably" in that answer give me pause -- internal boot and USB flash boot are fundamentally different architectures with different filesystems, different restore procedures, and different UEFI dependencies.

Whether the Appdata Backup plugin's flash backup function actually works correctly with an internal boot ZFS partition -- and critically whether its restore routine produces a bootable system -- really needs a confirmed tested answer rather than an analogy from the USB boot workflow.

Would also be good to hear from @JorgeB on this one before anyone relies on it as their backup strategy.

Edited May 19May 19 by Lolight

I never used the plugin but you can still use the "boot device backup" function from the GUI, or the Connect cloud backup.

Plugin just works, nothing to do.

5 hours ago, JorgeB said:

I never used the plugin but you can still use the "boot device backup" function from the GUI, or the Connect cloud backup.

The problem I have with that :
- It's manual, and not automatic on a schedule, like the plugin (I backup my dockers & flash every month)

- I like the way I could choose a specific path - and thus could backup to a ready-made-usb if I wanted (especially for internal boot crash mitigation for example)

I thus intend to migrate to TPM+Internal Boot with monthly backups to the old USB key, so I can restore to internal boot or boot from USB easily if need be.

BTW, "Yes. Internal boot SSD/NVMe devices count toward your attached device limit." >> This is quite sad and should be changed.

11 hours ago, Lolight said:

The "should" and "probably" in that answer give me pause -- internal boot and USB flash boot are fundamentally different architectures with different filesystems, different restore procedures, and different UEFI dependencies.

Whether the Appdata Backup plugin's flash backup function actually works correctly with an internal boot ZFS partition -- and critically whether its restore routine produces a bootable system -- really needs a confirmed tested answer rather than an analogy from the USB boot workflow.

Would also be good to hear from @JorgeB on this one before anyone relies on it as their backup strategy.

Appdata backup takes /boot and makes a copy(archive) of it. It doesn't care nor needs to care about filesystems or anything else. And the only thing you actually need to backup is the /boot/config folder and /boot/extra (if you have this)

everything else on the boot drive(s) is replaceble by making a new install, to which you then just need to put your backed up config (and extra) folder back in place.

Edited May 19May 19 by MowMdown

39 minutes ago, LGFS said:

This is quite sad and should be changed.

That's because you can use the remaining space as a data partition/pool storage. Whereas you couldn't really use the USB for anything other than booting.

Most users will take their two 1TB SSDs and carve out a small 4-8GB boot partition leaving 990+GB of usable space rather than dedicate two drives to only booting unraid.

Edited May 19May 19 by MowMdown

I backed up using the "boot device backup" function from the GUI (never knew that existed).

Also specifically ran the adddata/backup plugin with my new internal boot.

Boot resulting .zip files are identical. Same size and number of files and creation dates. So it looks like both methods will work as previously.

On 5/18/2026 at 5:49 PM, RaidPC said:

Been using the plugin Backup/Restore Appdata to backup my flash drive.

I have two UnRaid servers. One just has the internal boot on one cache drive (shared with Data Partition). The other Unraid server has two internal boot drives on two cache drives (shared with Data Partition).

What is the recommended app/plugin or solution for backing them up?

I still use this user script for boot device backups.

#!/bin/bash

#### SECTION 1 ####------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#dir = WHATEVER FOLDER PATH YOU WANT TO SAVE TO
dir="your directory of choice"

echo 'Executing native unraid backup script'
/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/flash_backup

#### SECTION 2 ####------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo 'Remove symlink from emhttp'
find /usr/local/emhttp/ -maxdepth 1 -name '*boot-backup-*.zip' -delete

sleep 5

#### SECTION 3 ####------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if [ ! -d "$dir" ] ; then
 
			echo "making directory as it does not yet exist"

			# make the directory as it doesnt exist
			mkdir -vp "$dir"
		else
			echo "As $dir exists continuing."
			fi


#### SECTION 4 ####------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo 'Move Flash Zip Backup from Root to Backup Destination'
mv /*-boot-backup-*.zip "$dir"

sleep 5

#### SECTION 5 ####------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo 'Deleting Old Backups'

#ENTER NUMERIC VALUE OF DAYS AFTER "-MTIME +"
find "$dir"* -mtime +10 -exec rm -rfv {} \;

echo 'All Done'

#### SECTION 6 ####------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#UNCOMMENT THE NEXT LINE TO ENABLE GUI NOTIFICATION UPON COMPLETION 
/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/notify -e "Unraid Server Notice" -s "Flash Zip Backup" -d "A copy of the boot disk has been backed up" -i "normal"

exit

21 hours ago, jgosnell said:

I still use this user script for boot device backups.

I think you’ll find that that script fails with internal boot drives. At least it does for me.

The original version will fail because although the same script is being called for the internal backup process, the output file names were changed from containing flash_backup to now having boot_backup. That would cause the old version to fail. What I posted above has been changed to reflect the new filenames and the backup portion of the script working on my system. The notification at the end of the script doesn't seem to work anymore so I need to troubleshoot that.

3 hours ago, jgosnell said:

The original version will fail because although the same script is being called for the internal backup process, the output file names were changed from containing flash_backup to now having boot_backup. That would cause the old version to fail. What I posted above has been changed to reflect the new filenames and the backup portion of the script working on my system. The notification at the end of the script doesn't seem to work anymore so I need to troubleshoot that.

Modified mine as you described-

#!/bin/bash

# Backup destination (change this to your desired path)

dir="/enter/destination/path/here/"

server_name=$(hostname)

# Cleanup: remove any existing temporary flash backups in emhttp

find /usr/local/emhttp/ -maxdepth 1 -name '*boot-backup-*.zip' -delete

sleep 5

# Call the internal Unraid backup script

/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/flash_backup

# Check if the zip file was actually created in the root directory

if ls /*-boot-backup-*.zip 1> /dev/null 2>&1; then

# Move the generated zip file to your backup destination

mv /*-boot-backup-*.zip "$dir"

sleep 5

# Optional: Delete backups older than 30 days

find "$dir"* -mtime +30 -exec rm -rfv {} \;

# Send Success Notification

/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/notify -e "Flash Backup Success" -s "Boot Backup" -d "The flash drive for $server_name has been successfully zipped and backed up to $dir." -i "normal"

else

# Send Failure Notification

/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/notify -e "Flash Backup FAILURE" -s "Boot Backup" -d "CRITICAL: The backup script failed to generate the flash zip file on $server_name." -i "alert"

fi

Looks like it works but not tested much by me. I am getting success notifications. You'll need to enter a path for the backup destination.