The recommended USB size for 7 had to my knowledge been 8gb.

Anyone know what the recommended size is for 8 ?

I assume it will be bigger due to being immutable.

I've heard 16GB as the recommended minimum, but it's not yet official.

👍

2 hours ago, Brakmaren said:

The recommended USB size for 7 had to my knowledge been 8gb.

Anyone know what the recommended size is for 8 ?

I assume it will be bigger due to being immutable.

?

The size of the USB-Stick has nothing to do with the number of drives...

My Server has 9 HDDs and two NVMEs and the USB-Stick has "only" 8GB - i use it since 2012 👍

Edited September 26Sep 26 by Zonediver

The numbers reference the version of unRAID OS, not the number of drives 😘

Edited September 26Sep 26 by Brakmaren

Just now, Brakmaren said:

The numbers reference the version of unRAID is, not the number of drives 😘

This has also nothing to do with the size.

16GB are recommendet because 8GB Stricks are no longer available - thats why.

Ok, maby i should have make it a bit more detailed.

I'm not using usb, I'm using a nvme.

The reason for asking is because I would like to switch to an Intel optane m10, and like to know what the minimum size to get, to be able to use same nvme on unRAID OS 8.

But I think I'm going with the first tip on 16gb.

Thanks.

Edited September 26Sep 26 by Brakmaren

5 hours ago, Brakmaren said:

Ok, maby i should have make it a bit more detailed.

I'm not using usb, I'm using a nvme.

The reason for asking is because I would like to switch to an Intel optane m10, and like to know what the minimum size to get, to be able to use same nvme on unRAID OS 8.

But I think I'm going with the first tip on 16gb.

Thanks.

16GB is ok 👍

8 hours ago, Brakmaren said:

I assume it will be bigger due to being immutable

Unraid is already immutable. The installed version isn't modified since it is loaded fresh into RAM from archives on the boot device at each boot.

6 hours ago, Brakmaren said:

minimum size to get

Internal boot device is counted as a drive. If you use a drive much larger than needed for the boot device, it can be partitioned into boot and pool partitions, then the pool partition can be used for other things like cache, dockers, ...

That's how I have it configured now.

128gb nvme for boot plus temp.

But i like to have a optane as boot only, and maybe two as raid for peace of mind 😇

On 9/26/2026 at 9:52 AM, JorgeB said:

I've heard 16GB as the recommended minimum, but it's not yet official.

I really hope the devs can keep Unraid 8 lean enough to support an 8GB boot device as the minimum. It would be great to keep re-using those reliable, tried-and-true USB flash drives we already have on hand without being forced to upgrade just for the boot media.

Never mind... Forget about 8GB boot drives.

Eli in the latest Unraid 8 Q&A:

"Um, we're using Universal Blues UCore, so that includes a pretty wide base set of packages.

And we're doing a lot less trimming of that base set because we wanna give you guys more out of the box ability to script."

That was my though too watching the video. I think/hope that I'll be OK with my 16GB flashdrive.

When I started, the archive for the full system was 213MB (6.8.3). We are at 1.15GB now and v8 seems to be larger. The impact is probably not only for the boot device, but also for RAM.

I am afraid that small or old servers will have more and more trouble running Unraid. But everything is not so bad, we are lucky that the hardware is cheap nowadays !

PS : I hate this new trend of starting almost every answer by telling how great the question is. Especially since Eli probably new the questions in advance and perhaps even helped write them from all the questions provided by the community.

13 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

The impact is probably not only for the boot device, but also for RAM.

That's a major concern considering the current market.

16GB should be enough.

@JorgeB

As in reference to RAM or boot device size?

Boot size device.