Dependency on Lime Tech when flash drive fails?


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If you have multiple, licensed, USB drives you can move them between your machines under the following assumptions

- you copy in the machine-specific configuration

- both licenses can handle the max number of drives

- you haven't used the procedure to move the license from one USB serial number to a different serial number in which case the old serial number becomes blacklisted

 

And there is no difference if you instead of moving license keys between multiple machines instead keep one key in a drawer until needed.

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@jonathanmthanks for that. I have been getting that impression overall about Lime-Tech. The good news is that might make Lime-Tech less appealing to get snapped up by some big player that ends up abandoning current customers as has so often happened with other small tech companies. The bad news is Tom might get hit by the proverbial bus and/or otherwise cease operations with nobody to pick up where he left off. Either way it's reasonable to ask what happens to unRaid users dependent on Lime-Tech especially with the licensing scheme. Given enough time we all have the option of moving to some other platform but it's what happens in the short term that concerns me.

 

It's also reassuring so many have been willing to jump in and help out in this thread. The community support is impressive and appreciated. Perhaps I'll be helping others out someday in the future. I'd still like to hear from @limetechbut I understand if he doesn't have the bandwidth.

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Perhaps a more elegant solution might be a built-in USB 'migration' tool within the OS - allowing you to opt to transfer to a new drive as a routine every n years.

 

I've had plenty of USB drives die on me (especially ones used in the car for music - but guess they're read a lot more than UR) - but my UR drive has been fine to date.

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1 hour ago, extrobe said:

Perhaps a more elegant solution might be a built-in USB 'migration' tool within the OS - allowing you to opt to transfer to a new drive as a routine every n years.

 

I've had plenty of USB drives die on me (especially ones used in the car for music - but guess they're read a lot more than UR) - but my UR drive has been fine to date.

I think the wide temperature span and the large number of unexpected power losses in the car is a way stronger reason for USB failures than how much you have read the drive.

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On 2/10/2018 at 7:42 PM, jonathanm said:

I understand where you are coming from, but your concerns are largely unfounded.

3. Limetech has been in this arena for MANY years, and has expanded operations greatly in the last 4 years. During that time they have always been more than fair to their customers, it feels more like a family than a tech company. As a newcomer, it's not possible to see this from the current state, you really just have to experience it over time. Every policy decision that could have been made differently have come down on the side of keeping the majority of customers happy, after discussion on the forum.

Maybe @limetech will comment, but that's how I see things after being around here for 10 years.

 

1) It is been almost a week since this post was written, and you see no reply from Lime

2) Where is Tom? Is he still around?

3) I am working with unRaid for maybe 10 years. My emails to lime (my first hardware was built and purchased from Lime) are answered sometimes after a week. 

4) This forum is exceptional. There are few people in particular who's knowledge and willingness to help are extraordinary. I doubt if I could upgrade my server without the help here. 

 

 

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4 hours ago, pwm said:

I think the wide temperature span and the large number of unexpected power losses in the car is a way stronger reason for USB failures than how much you have read the drive.

My car appears to gracefully handle power to the USB drive and I still had a drive fail. When you shut the car off you can see the light on the drive blink a few times after the key is off. Modern cars do all sorts of things with the key off and I doubt they're abruptly cutting power to USB ports intended to store music. What's more my drive was not just corrupted but unusable even after re-formatting it. I agree the temperature swings are a factor--especially summer temps with a car parked in the sun. But so is having a USB flash drive at elevated temperature inside a running server with quiet cooling 24/7 for years on end.

 

Hopefully @limetech can reply here next week if he's away from things this week. I agree with @michael123 the forum support here is amazing, and another round of thanks to all who've replied, but it would still be good to hear from Tom on this issue.

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On 2/13/2018 at 1:13 PM, pwm said:

If you have multiple, licensed, USB drives you can move them between your machines under the following assumptions

- you copy in the machine-specific configuration

Just thought I would elaborate on this. The only thing about the hardware unRAID stores is the disk assignments, in config/super.dat

 

unRAID figures out the hardware each time it boots. The flash drive is just for remembering settings the user has made in the webUI.

 

And all of those settings can be easily copied just by copying the config folder.

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I think the conversation about Limetech being unable to provide a new license file is largely academic.

 

If Limetech ceases operations without securing the company's assets or placing them in the public domain (and I obviously hope that never happens) then I will move my server to another OS.  I am not concerned with operating unRAID in perpetuity following the potential untimely demise of Limetech.  That's because a) it's not very likely to happen, and b) what really worries me is operating an up to date, patched OS.  If my flash drive fails in the short time between Limetech's demise and before I can move to a supported OS, then I'll take my XFS formatted drives and move along.

 

Like many others I spend time participating on this forum to help make unRAID a successful product - I don't just wish Tom well, I volunteer my time to make his business successful.  And I think his team is running a very successful small IT shop that is performing to professional standards, and fully worthy of you buying his product.  But if tragedy should somehow strike my worry is going to be about an exit strategy, not read/write cycles on flash drives.  I know that sounds harsh - but in today's threat environment you can't plan to operate an unpatched OS forever.  

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On 2/10/2018 at 4:35 PM, dev_guy said:

Much of that goes out the window if you lose the ability to run unRAID because your flash drive dies and Lime Tech has been bought up and discarded by Google (as Google has done with countless other companies with loyal followings). You would have to start over on a new OS. If a user just needs a file server there are arguably better overall choices than unRAID. A big reason to choose unRAID is all the other functionality.

I doubt even that scenario is as bleak as you portray.  I am a long-time user of SageTV.  SageTV was purchased by Google as they used some of the software in the TV part of their Google Fiber business.  But SageTV as a separate product went dormant, but there was (and still is) a vibrant user community.  A couple of years ago when Google wasn't using SageTV as much the founder of SageTV had Google Open Source SageTV.  So SageTV V9 is now an open source product (and runs very well under unRAID in a Docker).  I could see something like that happen with unRAID if it were bought by a large company and then ignored.

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55 minutes ago, tdallen said:

I think the conversation about Limetech being unable to provide a new license file is largely academic.

 

If Limetech ceases operations without securing the company's assets or placing them in the public domain (and I obviously hope that never happens) then I will move my server to another OS.  I am not concerned with operating unRAID in perpetuity following the potential untimely demise of Limetech.  That's because a) it's not very likely to happen, and b) what really worries me is operating an up to date, patched OS.  If my flash drive fails in the short time between Limetech's demise and before I can move to a supported OS, then I'll take my XFS formatted drives and move along.

 

Like many others I spend time participating on this forum to help make unRAID a successful product - I don't just wish Tom well, I volunteer my time to make his business successful.  And I think his team is running a very successful small IT shop that is performing to professional standards, and fully worthy of you buying his product.  But if tragedy should somehow strike my worry is going to be about an exit strategy, not read/write cycles on flash drives.  I know that sounds harsh - but in today's threat environment you can't plan to operate an unpatched OS forever.  

 

Yep - i said basically same thing earlier in the thread, but you said it better.

 

On 2/11/2018 at 12:42 AM, SSD said:

But keeping it up to date, especially with the security issues that seem to be an ongoing challenge, would require someone at the helm. Let's all hope that Tom stays healthy, and unRAID continues to be a profitable venture!

 

Up until six months to a year ago, I would have said I could live forever on the version d'jour. Now I do not feel that way. 6 months? probably.  A year? maybe. 2 years? probably not. But this scenario seems very very unlikely. Tom is showing no signs of slowing. A sale seems more likely. And if he does get hit by a bus, he has already said that information about the proprietary parts of unRAID would be released to enable what @wayner mentions above. 

 

Related to the USB stick - understand that Tom uses this to protect his asset from piracy. And it works very well from what I have seen. And debating that the USB is an unreliable device, the way unRAID uses it, is not supported by the facts. In fact quite the opposite. The USB dependency is not going to change any time soon. I don't think comparing it to a USB stick used in the car is valid. You have condensation, large temperature variations, vibrations/jarring, in and out of your pocket, and continuous use. I would not expect such a device to do very well in the long term. But many here have unRAID keys that are 2, 5, even 10 years old that work fine. They are very lightly used and in a very steady operating environment. The biggest risk is physical damage, like snapping it off while walking past. Which is why the more compact sticks are recommended. My advice - don't sweat it.

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More good input and I would add keeping an OS up to date, including unRaid, is only necessary if it has some future problem you can't fix yourself, you allow outside access from the web, and/or install new native applications that could contain malware. If none of those are true you should be able to, as @SSD said, live forever on the version d'jour. I also am not suggesting Lime-Tech abandon protecting against piracy. And, finally, I agree you can move to a different platform but it's the time required to do so that concerns me. It's not a trivial thing to do with a relatively complex unRaid setup with many users, access rights, VLANs, Dockers, VMs, etc. I can replace anything that fails in a server in a matter of minutes or hours EXCEPT an unRaid license (flash drive) or replace the unRaid OS itself with something else. And before I invest all the time, and put all my eggs in the unRaid basket, it seems reasonable to know what happens if the flash drive does fail and I'm unable to get another licensed when it does. Every choice of a server OS involves trade-offs I'm just trying to get enough information to choose wisely rather than blindly trust my flash drive will never fail and Lime-Tech will never cease operations.

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On 2/10/2018 at 4:35 PM, dev_guy said:

If a user just needs a file server there are arguably better overall choices than unRAID. A big reason to choose unRAID is all the other functionality.

Just thought I would comment on this from earlier in the thread.

 

Most of the people participating in this thread chose unRAID when it was only a file server. Dockers and VMs (and even 64bit OS) were added with V6.

 

And if it was only a file server, I would probably still choose it today. The ability to grow the array as needed by using different sized disks and the ability to read any disk independently are reason enough.

 

And as I have said many times, the community was the main reason I chose it after looking at alternatives.

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Just now, dev_guy said:

More good input and I would add keeping an OS up to date, including unRaid, is only necessary if it has some future problem you can't fix yourself, you allow outside access from the web, and/or install new native applications that could contain malware. If none of those are true you should be able to, as @SSD said, live forever on the version d'jour. I also am not suggesting Lime-Tech abandon protecting against piracy. And, finally, I agree you can move to a different platform but it's the time required to do so that concerns me. It's not a trivial thing to do with a relatively complex unRaid setup with many users, access rights, VLANs, Dockers, VMs, etc. I can replace anything that fails in a server in a matter of minutes or hours EXCEPT an unRaid license (flash drive) or replace the unRaid OS itself with something else. And before I invest all the time, and put all my eggs in the unRaid basket, it seems reasonable to know what happens if the flash drive does fail and I'm unable to get another licensed when it does. Every choice of a server OS involves trade-offs I'm just trying to get enough information to choose wisely rather than blindly trust my flash drive will never fail and Lime-Tech will never cease operations.

 

You might consider a second license at some point in the future. Many of us that put our eggs in the unRAID basket decide to stand up a backup server. Until recently my backup server has been data backup only. But now I am setting things up so that i can switch my Dockers and VM over to my backup server if even the primary should have issues and I need to take it down. A backup key could be repurposed to use on the PROD server if needed.

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12 minutes ago, SSD said:

 

You might consider a second license at some point in the future. Many of us that put our eggs in the unRAID basket decide to stand up a backup server. Until recently my backup server has been data backup only. But now I am setting things up so that i can switch my Dockers and VM over to my backup server if even the primary should have issues and I need to take it down. A backup key could be repurposed to use on the PROD server if needed.

This makes a lot of sense, especially if your family gets very dependent on the media content on your unRAID server (which is the case for me).  It is great to have a backup server so that if your production system fails then they just have to point Plex, or SageTV or whatever to the backup server and they are back up and running in a matter of seconds.  It also gives you the flexibility to do work/upgrades on the production server without causing issues for them.

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1 hour ago, wayner said:

This makes a lot of sense, especially if your family gets very dependent on the media content on your unRAID server (which is the case for me).  It is great to have a backup server so that if your production system fails then they just have to point Plex, or SageTV or whatever to the backup server and they are back up and running in a matter of seconds.  It also gives you the flexibility to do work/upgrades on the production server without causing issues for them.

 

I have to work on the "seamless" part. ;) They are on 2 different servers and IP addresses are different. But it is enough that I know how and can assist my wife to get to her content!

 

Important that Plex DVR can continue to record livetv - anything missed cannot be recovered!

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One more factor to be considered.  No encryption scheme ever designed can't be cracked.  If you recall the developers of BluRay boasted that their encryption could not be broken.  On the same day as the first BluRay disk was released, a complete working rip of the movie was available for downloading!  (Never challenge a group of hackers that something can't be done!!!!)  It has not happened to LimeTech because the cost of a license is so reasonable and his policy for replacement keys so liberal that it is simply not worth the effort to crack the .key file protection scheme.  Should the company fail and replacement keys become unavailable, I could easily see that some of the unRAID users would soon be working on the problem.  And I have no doubt that they would succeed!

 

Of far more concern is keeping the OS (and its unRAID subsystems) updated to meet the ongoing security threats.  This problem has been compounded by the use by the unRAID user base in the use of VM's and Internet-accessing Dockers.  Without these, the strictly home-use unRAID NAS users would have little need for all the security updates and could continue to run for several years quite happily.  

Edited by Frank1940
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32 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

Without these, the strictly home-use unRAID NAS users would have little need for all the security updates and could continue to run for several years quite happily.  

Even strictly home-use NAS users would want/need updates.

 

It's easy to get a virus in a machine - and that virus may then hunt for known security problems to try to reach other systems. Which means Samba and the web interface is vulnerable. With a vulnerability like Heartbleed, lots of SSL-based solutions was caught with the pants down. We have to be prepared for more security issues with similar impact - and that means that even home  users strictly limiting themselves to using unRAID as NAS would/should worry about continued use of a product if the maintainer is no longer available.

 

The good thing about unRAID compared to fully closed-source solutions is that people will be able to update quite a lot of unRAID functionality even without the ability to rebuild the LT-specific closed-source modules. So the danger of using unRAID is actually less than compared to using a WD or Asus storage solution - if an Asus manager decides to drop a product it's harder for end users to figure out good ways to fix important security issues. And since unRAID is "the" product for LT, there is no manager that will suddenly decide all focus should move to some other product range.

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@frank1940 That's a good point and, from the sound of it, Tom might even help that cause from the sound of things if he's able to and still around should Lime-Tech cease their current operations. Based on everything I've learned, thanks to everyone's help here, a second licensed flash drive likely makes the most sense for me. I'd wait to buy the second license until I was sure I was likely to stay in the unRaid camp for the long haul. I agree about security threats, etc. I have an old NAS that hasn't been updated since 2013. I've had no need to mess with a good thing.

Edited by dev_guy
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12 minutes ago, pwm said:

It's easy to get a virus in a machine - and that virus may then hunt for known security problems to try to reach other systems. Which means Samba and the web interface is vulnerable.

 

True, I have already changed all of my SMB shares to read-only and have not assigned any  users to any of my SMB accounts with a higher privilege.  Even if I get one of the Ransomware attacks, it can't access my files with read-write access to any share that is on the array.  (Remember, even the root user can't change your files using  SMB access.)  As far as malware targeting any unRAID server with a directed assault on unRAID specifically, I fail to see that it would be a worth-while venture for any group of cyper criminals to be very interested and I am certainly not a target for a 'letter' agency of any government-- either domestic or foreign.  

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28 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

As far as malware targeting any unRAID server with a directed assault on unRAID specifically, I fail to see that it would be a worth-while venture for any group of cyper criminals to be very interested and I am certainly not a target for a 'letter' agency of any government-- either domestic or foreign. 

No, unRAID is most likely not an explicit target. But anything with a web interface or a Samba server is a target - attacking software will not care if it's an Ubuntu server, a Windows machine or an unRAID installation - they attack based on exposed ports and services. Anything that shares files will always be a target.

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@pwm you make a valid point and it's likely even more applicable with the recently published spectre and/or meltdown vulnerabilities that can be exploited by merely browsing a site with hidden javascript. There are supposedly already 130 known exploits found in the wild. That said the "public" interfaces of things like Samba are very mature, open source, and generally quite solid. I worry much more about all the applications and functionality being jammed into commercial  NAS products. Those applications are often closed source, developed in Taiwan or China, and poorly tested. For anyone curious have a look at Qnap's security page. Most of the vulnerabilities are related to "enhanced" functionality added by Qnap: https://www.qnap.com/en/security-advisory

 

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Tying registration to a USB Flash device is both eleguent and a real pain-in-the-neck at the same time.  First, there is a very technical problem it solves.  In the case of writing to a parity-protected array, there exists the possibility that a device can report a write failure in a long queue of write commands.  When this happens we must assume that the sector being written does not contain proper data.  This means that any subsequently queued read command to that same sector must also be marked as "failed" even if the drive reports success, and instead, read data must be "reconstructed" using the other devices in the array.  Further, the failed status of the device must persist across reboots so that reading stale data is not possible.  This problem is solved by having the md/unraid driver write failed status information directly to a file (super.dat) stored on the USB flash device.  This is done right in-line and synchronously with I/O completions handled by the driver.  This is the reason we must insist that the USB flash device remain plugged into a running server.

 

Next, using the GUID of the device for registration lets you totally reconfigure your server with new h/w and everything "just works".  This is even more awesome when using Virtual Machines.  For example, one can create a win10 VM on a dog-slow 10 year old hard disk, on a 5 year old motherboard, with GPU passthrough cobbled using ACS override, and then... Buy new h/w: latest Threadripper, GTX 1080, fast SSD for cache.  You just plug your flash device into new server and unRAID comes right up.  Next, maybe leave your old slow spinner unassigned, copy the vdisk.img file to your new SSD, make a tweak to the VM settings to pass through different GPU, maybe change memory/core assignments, and guess what? The win10 VM also boots right up and works!  (Well there might be a little more work involved for this scenario but you get the point.)

 

As for LimeTech going bust... we have instructions with several trusted individuals on how to release everything unencumbered.  But as others have pointed out, you can always get at all of your data using other linux distros.

 

Lastly I need to reiterate: IMHO the real value of unRAID lies in the Community of users who participate and help out here on the Forums.  Somehow we have managed to keep the Forums friendly and inviting to new users.  Of course there are, ahem, a few exceptions, but in general, it's a really great group of users here.  (Again: thanks to all of you!)

 

 

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On 2/11/2018 at 7:26 AM, dev_guy said:

I have found a couple sources of SLC (single level) industrial USB flash drives rated for 10 years data retention and 100,000 write/erase cycles (vs about 5000 for typical consumer flash drives) over their full range of operating temperature. They're designed for even military applications. They're relatively expensive at about $45+ for a 1GB drive but that might be cheap insurance if I don't go with the Kingston Mobile Lite SD reader.

 

I appreciate everyone's input on this. Hopefully @limetech will also comment this week.

 

I'm quite ignorant compared to the posters, however had a thing that makes you go HMM thought - if flashdrive has good controller and most of the wear-out is from erase cycles, would a larger (storage capacity) disk in a light usage scenario like this last longer for that reason of having more blocks? (you're talking a couple of bucks on the USB2 Sandisk Cruzers for example to go from 16 to 32GB).   I'm also a little confused about the discourse since simply clicking on the Flash icon leads you to a "flash backup" option, so since a failed USB doesn't seem to harm the array other than GUI freakout, and since it's easy to automate backups of the Flash, maybe with an erase and restore once a year or so to refresh all the writes, seems you're pretty secure.   At any rate, it would seem the "hit by a bus" theory (sorry Tom, I'm a singular point of failure at work too so I get talked about like this all the time too lol) is the only significant concern, and per his comment it would take a significant coordinated Multi-Bus Attack scenario to take UnRaid down completely.   Does seem pertinent I suppose to have some sort of arbitrary replacement cycle just in terms of annoyance avoidance, as important as our data is to us vs. cost of these.   Mine's  going on 3 yrs and hadn't given it a thought til now.

 

Definite +1 on avoidance of the Sandisk cruzer 3.0 drives -- write speed is crazy good, but after buying in bulk Black Friday special, I've had several fail, one got hot enough to burn out the USB ports on the back of my Mac Mini.  Kind of Habernero's for your USB ports...  Guess we know how small is too small now...

 

Final +1 to @limetech comment about the community here - I've seen none finer, I as a tech Noob can find detailed courteous answers on almost anything I search for (then google for an hour to unpack what it means lol), which sadly is rare in the Linux discussionboards.   Thank you all for the extra features and for the knowledge I'm gaining.    @gridrunner 's (SpaceInvader One) Youtube channel is simply spectacular for us non-pro enthusiasts, and hopefully all of this is widening the interest and uptake of UnRaid - seems a good fit with the Economy of Ryzen and off-lease server parts available now.   It's amazing how feature enhanced this platform is due to you fine gentlemen/ladies.   

 

Edited by jsdoc3
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