Help USB stick detected as SCSI drive - UnRaid install impossible?

[theboing]

Hi all,

 

my USB Drive broke and for replacement I thought "This time don't use the shabby old drive laying around, get a new one and make sure it has good reading speed". So I bought a corsair voyager gtx 128 gb usb 3.0 drive, which was tested in the 400MB/s range.

 

Turns out this device looks like USB stick, walks like one, talks like one, but isn't one. Internally it works more like an external SSD with a USB interface. Windows detects it as SCSI drive and the unraid installer won't let me install to it.

 

I wasn't aware of this pitfall, won't happen again, but now I have it and I have no other purpose for it. Can I use it somehow anyways to boot unraid from it?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by theboing

[itimpi]

UnRAID only needs a few GB and you do not gain anything significant in terms of performance by using USB3 as Unraid runs from RAM after initial boot only using the USB drive to store configuration information.   Also many motherboards seem to have problems handling USB3 reliably during the boot process, so USB2 tends to be recommended.

 

You can, therefore, save yourself money by getting a much smaller USB2 drive.   I personally go for Sandisk Cruzer Fit (either 8 or 16GB) although others have their own preferences.

[theboing]

Thanks for your reply, I see your point and that's why I used to use the exact device you suggest. However that's not my point here. I already bought the fast thing, and I can't give it back, also usb3 is not my problem. 

 

The USB stick I bought is treated as SCSI drive and the unraid installer does not see it as USB stick. That thing appears to be an external hard drive squeezed into the shape of a USB stick. 

 

I hope I could express my problem better this time and I'm afraid I know the answer already. 

 

Is there a reason why unraid won't install to external hard drives? 

Edited February 7, 2019 by theboing

[itimpi]

UnRAID does not install in the traditional sense.     Instead it unpacks itself from archives on the USB device on every boot and installs into RAM and runs from RAM.   It then reads some configuration information from the USB drive to do the final tailoring it to the users preferences.

 

The Unraid license is tied to the GUID of a particular USB drive.   Unfortunately that is not something that is subject to change.

[Frank1940]

On this Page:

       https://unraid.net/download

 

Find the following quote:

Quote

 

Instructions

To start your 30-Day Free Trial your server must have an internet connection. Begin by downloading the USB Creator. Your USB drive must contain a unique GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) and be a minimum 1GB in size and a maximum 32GB in size.

 

You might be able to partition your 128GB flash to have a partition smaller than 32GB and make that the active partition.   You might also double check the BIOS boot setup to see if you can force your flash drive to be mounted as a UBS flash drive device.  You could also list the Make and Model of the MB to see if anyone who has that MB might be able to provide some insight.