Well I outsmarted myself, but the consequences weren't that bad.

 

I had recently removed a user share and a user from my unRAID, so I thought I would backup my flash to my spare key. Instead of my usual method of stopping the array and copying over the network, I thought I would try it with unAD (unAssigned Devices).

 

Plugged my spare key in and it was recognized as an unassigned device. Knew I needed to stop the array so super.dat on the copy would show a stopped array, so I stopped it.

 

When the webGUI refreshed, it said I had too many devices for a Plus license. Both flash have Pro keys so I don't know what that was about.

 

I figured I better remove the spare flash and reboot. It came back up with a parity check. I thought it might have written the stopped status to super.dat on the spare flash instead of the one it had booted from, but checking that timestamp it doesn't look like that is the case. And the timestamp of super.dat on the flash I rebooted from corresponds to the reboot time of course.

 

So I didn't get my flash backed up. I am going to let it finish the parity check (why not) then do the backup my usual way. It looks like I didn't actually break anything.

 

Don't know if it would have worked if I had stopped the array before plugging in the spare flash. Will unAD work to mount a device with the array stopped?

 

 

*EDIT*

I just realized what happened with the plus/pro key issue. I was looking at the wrong place on my screen!

 

I had my server description (Settings - Identity) set to H87I-Plus : i5-4570S and I that is where I saw the word Plus. I have changed that to H87I+ : i5-4570S so I won't confuse myself again

 

Still doesn't explain why it thought I had too many devices though. I didn't actually look at the right place on the screen so I don't know what it thought my license was. My guess is it was just a confusion between which flash it was reading the GUID from and which flash it was reading the key from.

Interesting result ... I suppose having two devices named "UnRAID" wasn't a good idea 

 

... think I'll just continue backing up over the network  8)