WeeboTech Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 On further thought the USB <> SD solves the current concerns. I think this is the way to go as it is a simple product evaluation exercise. This is the easiest method of easing the minds of those concerned about limited writes. In my case I've worn out brand name SD cards. I would have to add that they were nearly full because of all the packages I tested and stored on them. My thought is with todays technology and plenty of spare cells, this should be diminished greatly. Quote Link to comment
BRiT Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yeah, I'd be completely fine with the two flash drive method for unraid, or anything that could keep personal data off of license hardware. Quote Link to comment
limetech Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 No way in hell I'm sending a device with my personal data on it to any company. Even if it no longer works, there are ways to get at some of that data that was on the flash drive. Absolutely horrible idea and not customer friendly. We never require anyone to send in their defective flash devices. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 No way in hell I'm sending a device with my personal data on it to any company. Even if it no longer works, there are ways to get at some of that data that was on the flash drive. Absolutely horrible idea and not customer friendly. Tom doesn't require this -- although I think it'd be perfectly reasonable for him to do so if he's providing you with a free replacement key. If you have a hard drive fail under warranty the manufacturer requires that you return it to get a replacement - and a hard drive is FAR more likely to actually contain some of your personal data. It is, of course, your choice about whether or not to have it replaced -- the alternative is you just buy a new hard drive and destroy your old one. But then you don't get a free replacement. I'd think the same logic is true here ... if the flash drive is broken and you want a FREE replacement key, it would be very reasonable for Tom to require that you mail in the broken flash drive. But the whole point is academic, as Tom trusts his customers to not abuse the privilege and so doesn't require that. By the way, what "personal data" is on the flash drive? (other than your name, which is stored in your key file) NONE of the data you write to UnRAID is stored on the flash drive. Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 By the way, what "personal data" is on the flash drive? (other than your name, which is stored in your key file) NONE of the data you write to UnRAID is stored on the flash drive. The encrypted passwords are stored in the passwd files. Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I mentioned that it's reasonable to require the flash to be sent in since other vendors do it with other hardware. I.E. hard drives, pace ilok, etc, etc. It was a somewhat painful process to do the pace ilok exchange when mine failed. While they send you a replacement ilok for a small amount of money, you have to pay for the shipping. Plus you have to pay for the shipping to send the old ilok back. Overall this cost me $30, Replacement ilok, shipping new empty ilok to me, shipping ilok back. Then there was the delay of verification and putting my licenses back into my account. I'll re-iterate, this is only here to post an example of a professional process for license replacement with costly licensed music software. They way limetech handles it is extremely easy. So for those who have issue, realize the process is relatively painless. Quote Link to comment
limetech Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 The most important file on the flash device is the 'super.dat' file. This file stores the array configuration: what storage device (by model/serial number) is associated with parity and each array disk. Within this data set, the most important is a single bit for each disk which says, "is this disk valid or not?" The unraid driver determines the type of operation to perform based on the settings of the "disk valid" bits. In addition, great care is taken to ensure the state of these bits is handle properly vis-a-vis device error detection. For example, suppose you are writing a block to disk1. This is going to involve read/modify/write of both disk1 and parity. Suppose the write to disk1 fails with a fatal device error. The unraid driver now has to properly handle any reads to the same block on disk1 by making sure disk1 actually is not read (because it has the wrong data), and instead read parity and all the other disks in order to reconstruct the data. In addition, the fact that disk1 is now "invalid" must be stored to non-volatile memory somewhere before such reads take place in order to handle the corner case where a system reset/reboot occurs between time disk1 was marked invalid and when that fact was actually written to non-volatile storage. If you look at the unraid driver you'll see that it directly accesses the 'super.dat' file right in the i/o path in order to accomplish this. So.. a USB flash device works nicely for this purpose as well. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I'll re-iterate, this is only here to post an example of a professional process for license replacement with costly licensed music software. I agree the Limetech process is painless compared to just about any other !! If you think it's expensive/painful to replace your licensed music key, you should start embroidering Bernina charged a friend over $200 to replace a defective (but out-of-warranty) key device for her computer ... and I believe Melco has similar costs. And they do NOT replace "lost" keys -- you have to buy another copy of their $1000+ software !! To get a defective unit replaced, you have to mail it back AND pay the replacement charge. Of course, when the machine costs 5-digits, and the software 4-digits, then a couple hundred for the protection gadget doesn't seem like so much Quote Link to comment
ian.nas4 Posted February 11, 2014 Author Share Posted February 11, 2014 I've started of a bigger conversation than I thought would happen! :-) Reading all the posts above, you'll see that a number of people have had failed usb drives and they are quickly replaced. However, my initial point was that you can't know in advance that will happen, even if it is highly likely at this time - and that USB devices do fail quite readily. One of the best solutions above is using a card reader, but after thinking about it for the last few days and reading all the posts, I think my idea of having the disks READ only from over the network ( but otherwise with all the settings the same) - would be a big step in the right directing. You could then still access all your data, with the same shares, permissions etc, and also do an array rebuild ie if a disk died, you rebooted and the usb key was dead, you could plug in a backup USB key (ID not matching), and a new drive, and it would still rebuild and be readable... So you could get you 'proper' license usb key, set up your system, copy it to as many things as you want... - and I have to agree with a few of the other posts above, assuming the server has internet access is definitely a no no... Quote Link to comment
dikkiedirk Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 I've started of a bigger conversation than I thought would happen! :-) Reading all the posts above, you'll see that a number of people have had failed usb drives and they are quickly replaced. However, my initial point was that you can't know in advance that will happen, even if it is highly likely at this time - and that USB devices do fail quite readily. One of the best solutions above is using a card reader, but after thinking about it for the last few days and reading all the posts, I think my idea of having the disks READ only from over the network ( but otherwise with all the settings the same) - would be a big step in the right directing. You could then still access all your data, with the same shares, permissions etc, and also do an array rebuild ie if a disk died, you rebooted and the usb key was dead, you could plug in a backup USB key (ID not matching), and a new drive, and it would still rebuild and be readable... So you could get you 'proper' license usb key, set up your system, copy it to as many things as you want... - and I have to agree with a few of the other posts above, assuming the server has internet access is definitely a no no... When you have a NAS running RAID-5 or 6 from either Qnap, Synology or other and the PSU dies it is more painfull and takes more time before it gets fixed and the data is available again. Quote Link to comment
jupilerman Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Here's an idea : boot from whatever (USB/HD/SSD/... another USB KEY) and only use the unRAID USB KEY GUID for licencing. No need to read/write to that KEY. It just need to be connected. Like this http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=15417.0 Quote Link to comment
nars Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Could be interesting if stock unraid would just lookup for an existing 'UNRAIDKEY' labeled flash and use license from that key, if present, else try from 'UNRAID' labeled flash as it does now (or the opposite lookup order, doesn't probably matter...). Quote Link to comment
lagamm Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 I am on year 6 on my original USB. I had HDD fail before but USB has never been an issue. The stick is a Lexar Firefly 1gb bought in August 2008 Oh one of my older HDD in the array is a Maxtor that is still running strong for over 10 years of usage. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
Talos Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 I'm same as lagamm above. Purchased my initial key in 2008 so coming up on 6 years running without fail. Mostly 24/7 system uptime that whole time. USB stick is an old lexar firefly 4gb which was the recommended stick at the time. I've had 3 hard drive failures in that 6 years and a motherboard failure also so don't really see the USB drive as the weak point given Unraids usage pattern. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 The larger and less full the flash drive is, the more spare cells there are to write with. I used the 2GB SD Cards with a 512MB unRAID partition. I would loose a card approx every 2 years. I also did allot of writing and editing on the boot flash. Just editing with vi makes a temporary .swp file. The failure rate slowed down after I installed a cache drive and put most of the packages and local/custom directory there. Quote Link to comment
jbartlett Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 I'm still running strong on my lexar firefly 4gb as well, though I'm starting to treat it as a geriatric old man and minimizing writes. Do plan on retiring it to the "backup key" stage soon as a precaution. Quote Link to comment
Russ Uno Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Many commercial software products use the pace ilok anti-piracy method. https://www.ilok.com/ The pace iLok mechanism certainly works, but that's also a $50 proposal for every key. Then there is a third party plus whatever fees limetech has to absorb to use it. The windows/MAC OS/X software and interface. I have to use the Ilok for ProTools HD software and the biggest problem with it is Pace. There is no one you can talk to, you have to pay up front if you have a problem for tech support and you have to buy Zero down time insurance from them if you don't want to wait for weeks to get one replaced and have to pay to ship it to them. Plus you have to buy the Ilok for $40. In a word, they've got you.. Though the idea could work where you go to your account and download the license(s) to the Ilok and when you upgrade the old license is removed and replaced by the new one though some developers let you keep the previous license. You can also move the license(s) to a new Ilok at will, which reminds me I should buy 2 new ones since mine are 10 years old.. Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Many commercial software products use the pace ilok anti-piracy method. https://www.ilok.com/ The pace iLok mechanism certainly works, but that's also a $50 proposal for every key. Then there is a third party plus whatever fees limetech has to absorb to use it. The windows/MAC OS/X software and interface. I have to use the Ilok for ProTools HD software and the biggest problem with it is Pace. There is no one you can talk to, you have to pay up front if you have a problem for tech support and you have to buy Zero down time insurance from them if you don't want to wait for weeks to get one replaced and have to pay to ship it to them. Plus you have to buy the Ilok for $40. In a word, they've got you.. Though the idea could work where you go to your account and download the license(s) to the Ilok and when you upgrade the old license is removed and replaced by the new one though some developers let you keep the previous license. You can also move the license(s) to a new Ilok at will, which reminds me I should buy 2 new ones since mine are 10 years old.. I'm not a fan of the iLok myself. I presented it to show possible solutions and discuss the nuances of those solutions and how they impact a person. There are pros and cons that can be learned from the discussion of it. Thanks for your input. Quote Link to comment
apgood Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Personally I much prefer just the USB stick with the guid license verification to some USB dongle. I have a USB dongle for some speaker design software and the drivers and getting the dongle to detect can be a real pain. Of course having the option to move all the other files off of the USB stick and only using it for guid license verification would be great. Maybe if the other files sat on the cache drive? You'd even have redundancy once Tom implements the btrfs stuff he has mentioned.... Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
megz Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 hasn’t this question already been answered? buy a sd card usb dongle with a id tied to the dongle not the sd card. buy two or three cheap 4gb or 8gb kingston sdhc cards and test them with first with a good disc checker, put identical versions of unraid on two of them and leave the third for a potential future version. what’s the issue with that ? ^ in principle it would be nice to get emailed a key and have an account and move away from the guid model,, im not sure many people would keygen/hack or sell a key for unraid to a product like this, its not photoshop or some AAA pc game etc.. its not expensive as it is and most people intelligent enough and well heeled enough to warrant a server build will probably spend $30 on the software. Hence if you pay and get a key and that same key is used elsewhere you just ask the buyer .. did you share the key? or just block more than 5 uses of the key.. with a registration server taking the amount of times used. finally there is a lot of community content here that people haven’t got paid for .. you give a little, you get a lot back unraid could be even cheaper or even free for home usage but as it grows just have support costs built into the small business server versions etc.. Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 hasn’t this question already been answered? buy a sd card usb dongle with a id tied to the dongle not the sd card. buy two or three cheap 4gb or 8gb kingston sdhc cards and test them with first with a good disc checker, put identical versions of unraid on two of them and leave the third for a potential future version. what’s the issue with that ? ^ There is very little choice i.e. a list of one reader that is known to work. Most (as in every one I purchased) doesnt work as the GUID isnt unique. It is the way to go but there needs to be a varity of choices and not one specific model of one specific device Quote Link to comment
megz Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 hasn’t this question already been answered? buy a sd card usb dongle with a id tied to the dongle not the sd card. buy two or three cheap 4gb or 8gb kingston sdhc cards and test them with first with a good disc checker, put identical versions of unraid on two of them and leave the third for a potential future version. what’s the issue with that ? ^ There is very little choice i.e. a list of one reader that is known to work. Most (as in every one I purchased) doesnt work as the GUID isnt unique. It is the way to go but there needs to be a varity of choices and not one specific model of one specific device but is tom happy with the ability for someone to do this even? Also im assuming is the GUID is not the serial number after checking between two cards just now running though and adapter they had different guid but .... because many SDHC usb adapters present their own serial number regardless of memory card .. THIS would be a better option for most users. Sounds like they are trying too hard to make you pay for a fault down the line btw dont get butt hurt by that comment, its true. There should be a better way. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 but is tom happy with the ability for someone to do this even? Also is the GUID the serial number ? As long as you have a device with a unique GUID then the specific .key file limetech issues to you for your license can only be used with that device. Doesn't matter if the device is a sd card reader or a flash drive. The problem is getting a card reader with a unique GUID. Don't know if the GUID can be a human-readable, from the packaging, serial number or not, but I doubt if that is generally the case. The GUID is read by unRAID from the device itself. If you have been booting unRAID from a flash drive in your "trials", you can click on the "flash" link on the main GUI page and it will take you to a page that gives you the GUID of your flash drive. This is what you enter on the order form when you purchase your license, and limetech then gives you a unique Plus.key or Pro.key file for you to put on that specific device that will unlock the additional capabilities. Quote Link to comment
megz Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 but is tom happy with the ability for someone to do this even? Also is the GUID the serial number ? As long as you have a device with a unique GUID then the specific .key file limetech issues to you for your license can only be used with that device. Doesn't matter if the device is a sd card reader or a flash drive. The problem is getting a card reader with a unique GUID. Don't know if the GUID can be a human-readable, from the packaging, serial number or not, but I doubt if that is generally the case. The GUID is read by unRAID from the device itself. If you have been booting unRAID from a flash drive in your "trials", you can click on the "flash" link on the main GUI page and it will take you to a page that gives you the GUID of your flash drive. This is what you enter on the order form when you purchase your license, and limetech then gives you a unique Plus.key or Pro.key file for you to put on that specific device that will unlock the additional capabilities. thanks. also, i noticed it was possible to actually re-flash the GUID on certain flash drives too.. although i think once you reach that thinking then unraid isnt for you.. my problem is that i don’t mind paying 2x unraid for $30 each, but in reality i would want the so called 'pro' edition which is a bit rich for just allowing a few more discs, which is $149 .. but unraid is not a backup . so i would need a backup server also with two keys because then i have two usb fault tolerant servers as such or at least something with a faster up time.. and although strictly you could email tom and keep the cost for two servers at $149 it might end up at $300 for that backup key some people advise to get !!! Of course, you only have 1 parity disc the more i investigate this product the less attractive it is becoming :'( Quote Link to comment
itimpi Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 There is very little choice i.e. a list of one reader that is known to work. Most (as in every one I purchased) doesnt work as the GUID isnt unique. It is the way to go but there needs to be a varity of choices and not one specific model of one specific device I have Kingston G2 and G3 readers - and they both have unique GUID's. Some people have said their G3 does not have a unique GUID, but mine does! Quote Link to comment
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