BLKMGK Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 My 2-cents: I see the appeal of using a reader, and I really wish these things exposed the microSD card s/n, but they don't. AFAIK all G3's are unusable, and we have run across G2's with duplicate GUID's. Even if your GUID appears unique don't be surprised if it gets blacklisted in the future. My recommendation at this time, and what we ship with the "preconfigured flash" products, as well as all server products is the SanDisk Cruzer Fit: http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/cruzer-fit/ This device is extremely small and also has pretty good write performance. The G3 work fine! I was booting unRAID to get the guid for all of my checking, the code was one mSD card so it was easy. This ease of swapping is why folks want this and DON'T want the guid from the card passed through. To date I've gone through two USB provided by unRAID in the past (might have been 3x) and at least 2 others over the years. Yes the failure rate is low but when they die you lose access to all of your data and I've never had a warning prior to the failures. I've never had an issue getting replacements but the down time is always a bummer. Since this is for testing its no big deal and maybe it would be best I look for a small dedicated stick. I do think the next time I see a failure or if I can get a replacement for the stick I believe I've lost I'll try to go mSD though just so downtime is near zero if it occurs again on something I rely on... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 I have 4 of the G3's and they are usable. I use the Micro SD card slot on my G3's in the HP Micro Server. One of the two slots that are not detected right away. You have to adjust the bios correctly and if both slots are occupied or changed there could be difficulty. While it's said the failure rate is low, my cards seem to fail about every 2 years or so. The larger the card, the less often the failure rate since there are many replacement cells. It also depends on how full the card is. Keep in mind even if you do not write to the card. Everytime a configuration is updated or the array is updated/stopped, The superblock is updated. Everytime a file is edited with vi, a .swp file is created and removed. Since I do put a number of boot and configuration files on my /boot flash, It's understandable why they fail. Quote Link to comment
limetech Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 We have flash devices that I've copied bzimage/bzroot to probably literally 100's of times. I have NEVER had a single flash failure but customers have returned devices which indeed were bad so.... dunno what to make of that. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 If you're concerned about flash drive failure ... I know some folks have configured systems to boot from a hard drive (or SSD), and just access the flash drive to confirm the GUID to validate the license. This is fairly common with virtualization. I have NOT tried this, but I suspect it would work ==> it would seem that you could configure a 2nd flash drive as the boot device, with the licensed UnRAID flash drive on a 2nd USB port. This would drastically reduce the usage of the licensed flash unit -- and put all the "wear and tear" on a flash drive that could be replaced at will. Basically this is the same as installing on a hard drive, but wouldn't waste a SATA port (or drive bay). However ... as I noted above, and Tom also commented on ... flash drive failure is a VERY low-incidence event in my experience (although WeeboTech's experience has been somewhat different). Quote Link to comment
BLKMGK Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 It's weird I know and truthfully I suspect the mSD are more susceptible but I'd only have to replace the chip (shrug). I'll pick something up asap to use for this offer, itching to test :-P Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
Dephcon Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I'm buying one to support Tom's ongoing efforts! <3 My recommendation at this time, and what we ship with the "preconfigured flash" products, as well as all server products is the SanDisk Cruzer Fit: http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/cruzer-fit/ This device is extremely small and also has pretty good write performance. Tom, with Xen being included what will the impact be on boot times? Would there be any real benefit from getting an expensive high performance USB3 drive? Quote Link to comment
limetech Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Tom, with Xen being included what will the impact be on boot times? Would there be any real benefit from getting an expensive high performance USB3 drive? It only takes a few seconds to first load the Xen hypervisor and then it immediately loads the unRaid 'bzimage' and 'bzroot' files. The latter takes a little longer because the size has increased. If you have a fast CPU then going USB3 probably would decrease boot time. To me it wouldn't be worth it, but if you shutdown/reboot a lot maybe it would. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Just got my new key (thanks Tom) so I could try unRAID 64-bit. I know I could just copy everything on the flash from my 32-bit installation, replace bzroot, bzimage, and the go file with the files in unRAID64, replace Plus.key with my new one, and delete /boot/extra, /boot/plugins, /boot/config/plugins. But I would rather start even cleaner than that. I think all I need to have it recognize and let me start my array is certain things from my 32-bit /boot/config folder. Somebody help me complete (or trim) this list: the folder named shares disk.cfg flash.cfg ident.cfg network.cfg share.cfg super.dat If I copy these from my unRAID 32-bit flash to my new flash containing only the contents of the unRAID 64-bit distribution, and add my new Plus.key will I be able to start the array without having to add drives or sync parity? Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Actually you should be able to just add your drives to the config and check the "Trust Parity" box and the array should start with no problem. No need to copy anything from the old flash. Shares should show up automatically based on the root level folders. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I suppose that would get me most of the way, but wouldn't I still have to add cache and configure share settings? Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I suppose that would get me most of the way, but wouldn't I still have to add cache and configure share settings? Yes -- you'd have to add your cache drive and if you have specific restrictions on your shares you'd need to set those. I THINK the share settings are all in share.cfg, so you could just copy it from the old drive. Just depends on just how "clean" you want to start off I would rather start even cleaner than that. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 My share.cfg doesn't have much in it. Looks like it might just be the defaults plus the mover cron. The folder named shares has a bunch of .cfg named for each share. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 The folder named shares has a bunch of .cfg named for each share. That's got to be what you need then. ... just checked my flash, and indeed that's the right thing to copy => the shares folder has a .cfg file for each of the shares. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 The one thing that's not clear is super.dat. It's not exactly human-readable but looks like it has the serial numbers so I think it must be the most important. Looks like disk.cfg is just some stuff that you set from the webGUI like spindown delay, disk export, etc. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 The one thing that's not clear is super.dat. It's not exactly human-readable but looks like it has the serial numbers so I think it must be the most important. May be ... but it seems simple enough to just assign the disks to the new key. If you don't want to wait for a parity sync, just be sure parity is good before you switch keys (i.e. do a parity check); and then check the "Trust Parity" box. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Rather than speculating about this where it's OT I just tried it. I started a new thread. Quote Link to comment
BLKMGK Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Just tested a huge number of USB sticks for R/W speed! Not strictly necessary I know but I bought about 4 of them to find a good candidate for a second key and yet another mSD reader too. Naturally the mSD reader had a GUID that showed up in a Google search and appears to be in use by an unRAID user <sigh>. So, tried everything from small sized PNY sticks to a TINY EMTEC stick (tempting to use due to size), multiple Sandisk (one was pretty bad!), to a MicroCenter generic green stick (wow, it was more consistent than most and faster than my Sandisk sticks!), till I finally went back to my first one a USB 3.0 stick from Patriot. In a USB 2.0 slot it was very consistant and faster than the others if not by very much. In a USB 3 slot it increased speed a good bit although sadly my test mobo has no USB 3 socket. We used to test sticks at work so I know they vary wildly between manufacturers and didn't have a chance to find out what their current fave was but I think this ruggedized Patriot will be the winner. 16Gig is overkill but it was under $20 and the smallest USB 3 that Microcenter had in stock. <shrug> Anyway, I hope this is food for thought for folks and I'll be registering this ASAP for testing! :-) Quote Link to comment
Dephcon Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I decided on using one of my existing 32GB Patriot Supersonic Boost XT, I ran crystal disk mark on it an am pretty happy with the result and it was pretty cheap (32GB preforms better than 8/16GB, apparently). I've been using the a 4GB USB2.0 version of the same stick for years on my prod unraid without issue. Quote Link to comment
crankbearing Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 just ordered my third pro key. Thanks, Tom. I just picked up a data traveler micro 8gb I have had two pro keys 512kb data travelers in service since 4.33 if I recall with no issue. Cannot find those sandisk fits around here Quote Link to comment
crankbearing Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Tom, are you working late . just got my 3rd key in the mail. thanks Tom. Now I'll not have any fun with x64 testing for a while, I am pre-clearing a 4tb red right now in the test setup. Quote Link to comment
BLKMGK Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 You guys running way behind on sending out keys? Been a few days and i know oyu're busy so just checking. Not in my SPAM folder either Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 You guys running way behind on sending out keys? Been a few days and i know oyu're busy so just checking. Not in my SPAM folder either Send Tom an e-mail ... he checks those FAR more frequently than the forum => and is generally VERY prompt at replying to key requests. Quote Link to comment
BLKMGK Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Ya, not sure I had his most recent addy and didn't search the site. Nearly bedtime here so it'll be tomorrow night before I can mess with it, I know he's really busy! Not a huge rush but wanted to check is all :-) Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Just send a note to: [email protected] Include the e-mail address you used when ordering the key and the GUID of the key Quote Link to comment
BLKMGK Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Just send a note to: [email protected] Include the e-mail address you used when ordering the key and the GUID of the key Ah duh, yeah that's always a good account! Done, thanks! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
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