Hi! I've been trying Unraid with a trial license, and the product is great, so I am going to buy a license, but before doing so, I need to solve questions just to be sure I am undesrtanding correctly how licensing works. I installed 7.3.0 stable directly, and I can see I am using a TPM type license, but I am still using Flash Boot, didn't change it to internal for the moment. I want to purchase an Unleashed license. It says when buying that the license is Lifetime, but with only 1 year of updates. Doubts:

• What happens if I want to change the NAS where I have running currently Unraid in the future? As the license is lifetime, I suppose I can install the exact same version available when the 1 year finishes, right?

• Being tied to TPM license type, what would be the process to migrate the license to a completely new equipment?

• If I migrate to internal boot, and want to change the boot disks for an entirely new ones in the new equipment, how this can be done?

• It should be possible to migrate from TPM to USB the license after purchasing it? Right now I am using the trial, so I am not seeing the option to do so. Will this be available when purchase is done? I understand with USB licensing things must be easier regarding portability, right? I purchased a high endurance USB, so maybe this is the most conservative and secure option to migrate in the future.

Thank you very much for your help!

Edited May 28May 28 by Romancin

1 hour ago, Romancin said:

What happens if I want to change the NAS where I have running currently Unraid in the future? As the license is lifetime, I suppose I can install the exact same version available when the 1 year finishes, right?

Yes.

1 hour ago, Romancin said:

If I migrate to internal boot, and want to change the boot disks for an entirely new ones in the new equipment, how this can be done?

Boot from a flash drive and rerun the wizard.

1 hour ago, Romancin said:

It should be possible to migrate from TPM to USB the license after purchasing it?

Yes, with a paid license, trial licenses cannot be transferred.

Boot from a flash drive and rerun the wizard.

Ok, but, with the internal boot, the flash drive will be restored from scratch, right? What about the config present in the old box and the license, if it is stored in TPM? Or should I take a backup (is this even possible when using internal boot?) and restore it in the flash drive?

Yes, with a paid license, trial licenses cannot be transferred.

Ok, but is it recommended? Or it is preferred to use TPM if possible?

And what about this one? Being tied to TPM license type, what would be the process to migrate the license to a completely new equipment?

Thank you for your help @JorgeB !

35 minutes ago, Romancin said:

Ok, but, with the internal boot, the flash drive will be restored from scratch, right?

You should sync the config folder from the internal boot pool to the flash drive first. You can see here for more info: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/198440-73xx-version-moving-boot-drive-nvmessd-to-another-drive-nvmessd/#findComment-1619744

36 minutes ago, Romancin said:

Ok, but is it recommended? Or it is preferred to use TPM if possible?

You can use either, whatever you prefer; each has its own beneficts.

37 minutes ago, Romancin said:

Being tied to TPM license type, what would be the process to migrate the license to a completely new equipment?

Make a license transfer, the same as if you changed the flash drive.

22 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Yes.

Boot from a flash drive and rerun the wizard.

Yes, with a paid license, trial licenses cannot be transferred.

Great, all doubts solved. Thank you very much!

On 5/28/2026 at 5:03 AM, Romancin said:

I understand with USB licensing things must be easier regarding portability, right? I purchased a high endurance USB, so maybe this is the most conservative and secure option to migrate in the future.

Before committing to either internal boot or TPM licensing it's worth reading the Boot Devices guide in the Boot Devices section of this forum.

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/196967-unraid-boot-device-guide-usb-and-nvme-hardware-selection/

It covers the practical differences between USB boot and internal boot in detail -- including the recovery path when something goes wrong with each approach -- which is relevant to your portability concerns.

Your instinct in question 4 is sound.

USB licensing tied to a quality flash drive is genuinely more portable and straightforward to recover from than TPM, which introduces dependencies on specific motherboard hardware and can be affected by firmware updates.

On your high endurance USB drive -- what brand and model is it specifically?

"High endurance" means very different things depending on the manufacturer.

Some drives marketed as high endurance are real industrial grade MLC NAND appropriate for always-on server use.

Others are consumer recycled TLC or even QLC drives with "high endurance" on the label as a marketing term.

Knowing the specific model would help confirm whether it's as reliable as you're assuming before committing the license to it.

Also worth knowing -- today's counterfeit USB drives are virtually impossible to distinguish from genuine ones by appearance alone.

Before trusting any drive with your license it's highly advisable running Chipgenius and/or Flash Drive Information Extractor on it.

These free tools take seconds to identify the exact controller, chip ID, and NAND type inside the drive (unless it's SanDisk) -- confirming whether what's printed on the label matches what's actually in the casing.

The Boot Devices guide covers what to look for in those results.

Edited May 31May 31 by Lolight

Wow, what a valuable post! Thanks for sharing!

For the moment, after reading in the forum that this model has a unique GUID, I opted for SDDR-B531-GN6NN MicroSD card reader from Sandisk, with a Sandisk 32GB High Endurance MicroSD card.

It seems someone reversed engineered this card to know which type of NAND it uses: https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20250203-sandisk-high-endurance-microsd-card-reverse-engineering/#gsc.tab=0

This is the first time I am using this kind of card, lets see how it behaves over time.

Before you commit your paid license to that MicroSD card combo, I’d highly recommend reconsidering.

While the teardown article you linked is excellent, it reveals that the card uses 3D TLC NAND.

While 3D TLC is great for dashcams writing huge, continuous video files, it is not optimal when used as an OS boot drive.

Furthermore, if that consumer SanDisk card reader dies or overheats, your license GUID goes with it, even if the MicroSD card itself is perfectly fine.

A much more reliable option: a real industrial-grade MLC Innodisk USB Drive 3ME -- eBay item number: 326046070546

These use Toshiba industrial MLC NAND designed specifically for embedded operating systems paired with a heavy duty industrial Silicon Motion controller with aggressive hardware wear-leveling.

Plug it into an internal motherboard header on a 9-pin USB adapter or a USB 2.0 port.

Because Unraid runs entirely in RAM after booting, you don't need USB 3.0 speeds.

Forcing it to USB 2.0 drops the power draw and lessens controller heat, making the drive practically immortal.

It will cost you only $4 per drive. I'd suggest buying a couple or more before they're all gone. You won't see deals like that again.

Edited May 31May 31 by Lolight

What is causing all these concerns around durability and different grades of flash?

Is it some large quantity of writes thats folks are doing to the flash to be concerned with? Is there some sort of read-only pattern that doesn't mix with certain flash types? Are folks rebooting constantly to have concerns about reads?

Edited May 31May 31 by BRiT

Good question.

The concern isn't about write-endurance at all -- Unraid writes almost nothing to the boot drive after the initial setup.

The OS loads entirely into RAM on boot and runs from there, meaning the boot drive sits essentially idle 24/7.

The actual concern is the exact opposite: long-term data retention and read-disturb resistance in a powered-on, idle state.

Flash NAND cells store data as an electrical charge.

Over time, particularly at elevated temperatures, those cells lose charge through a process called charge leakage.

Smaller-geometry NAND (modern TLC and QLC) has smaller cells with thinner walls that hold less charge and lose it faster.

In addition, they have many more voltage levels to manage, resulting in much tighter voltage margins -- especially QLC.

Modern, powerful controllers must work overtime, producing significant heat even at idle, while managing all the extra noise generated by unstable modern flash memory.

On the other hand large-geometry MLC NAND from older drives, with only four voltage levels, holds a charge far more reliably over long idle periods.

Their controllers are basically doing nothing, since stable NAND doesn't require much processing power or complex algorithms.

Read-disturb is a related issue.

Repeatedly reading cells adjacent to stored data can disturb the charge state of neighboring cells over time.

In an always-on server that occasionally reads the boot partition, this compounds slowly.

Therefore, the criteria for an ideal Unraid boot drive are almost the inverse of what you'd want for a general-purpose USB drive:

-- Large NAND geometry for better charge retention

-- Fewer voltage levels

-- A simple, low-activity controller that runs cool and performs minimal background work

-- An Industrial temperature rating (preferred)

-- USB 2.0 interface to keep the controller cool

The drives most people buy today -- fast, high capacity, USB 3.0 consumer drives -- are optimized for everything except what actually matters for this specific use case.

Thanks ChatGPT...

Beep boop. 🤖

In all seriousness, I just prefer to format things cleanly so they are easy to read.

Let me know if you disagree with any of the actual points about TLC v. MLC for Unraid boot drives, though!