They are reliable. I'm still using the same license key drive that I started in 2009 or so.

Edited December 12, 20196 yr by BRiT

FWIW when I initially started using Unraid last year it was using an EVGA Micro2 motherboard and I lost a brand new USB thumb drive several months into it. I was so pissed LOL

 

Upgraded hardware earlier this year and haven't had any USB issues (thankfully).

Knock on wood I'm running from one of those 16gb usb3 micro center branded drives plugged into an internal usb2 splitter cable and have had no issues maybe a lucky combination

2 hours ago, Abzstrak said:

I wouldn't care as much if they allowed us to boot off of anything and simply have the drive there for the license, but making us use the drive kills it,

Here's the thing. Unraid runs from RAM, so in effect the USB drive IS just there for the license. Once the system is booted, the only interactions with the USB drive is to save changes that you make to your configuration. It's not like the OS drive for a typical system.

 

Even during boot, the vast majority of the I/O is reading, which doesn't directly effect the lifespan of the flash. It does raise the temperature, so those little micro sized drives with plastic externals get toasty, but a well constructed drive like the kingston's with lots of metal to dissipate the heat don't get cooked.

 

It's not like you are carrying the drive around with you, and for security the best option is to mount the drive internally on a motherboard header to USB adapter anyway.

2 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Here's the thing. Unraid runs from RAM, so in effect the USB drive IS just there for the license. Once the system is booted, the only interactions with the USB drive is to save changes that you make to your configuration. It's not like the OS drive for a typical system.

 

Even during boot, the vast majority of the I/O is reading, which doesn't directly effect the lifespan of the flash. It does raise the temperature, so those little micro sized drives with plastic externals get toasty, but a well constructed drive like the kingston's with lots of metal to dissipate the heat don't get cooked.

 

It's not like you are carrying the drive around with you, and for security the best option is to mount the drive internally on a motherboard header to USB adapter anyway.

you have a few points of why its not that bad, but it would also be nice to have a boot drive that doesn't die from writes.  Also, if it was just there for licensing, it would probably never die.... at least, even if it did, it wouldn't stop you from booting.  USB flash drives are not enterprise class devices in any way, shape or form... this is not common practice for a very good reason.  If it were, we should be able to, at least, mirror two USB's.

 

Again, I have no problem with the OPTION of booting off the flash drive, but I've prefer to boot from one of my enterprise class drives that I can trust and can log to if I wish without it dying... and that I can run proper redundancy with. 

 

More options don't exist ONLY because not enough of us (paying customers) are complaining about how stupid this forced booting from a USB flash drive is.

2 hours ago, Abzstrak said:

More options don't exist ONLY because not enough of us (paying customers) are complaining about how stupid this forced booting from a USB flash drive is.

Do you actually understand why a USB flash device with a unique serial number is used?

Other stuff to check....   

Is the 5 volt supply within spec?  The USB subsystem is one of the few things that uses the 5 volt supply rail on modern motherboards.  If it is on the high side (especially above 5.5 volts) then USB devices may suffer.

Why are so there many writes to the USB?  Do you have something perhaps writing data files or log files to the USB drive?  My server sits at a few tens of writes only most days.

It won't help you, but the USB drive in my main server which is powered continually has been in use for almost nine years.

Edited December 13, 20196 yr by S80_UK
Typo corrected

14 hours ago, Abzstrak said:

USB flash drives are not enterprise class devices in any way, shape or form... this is not common practice for a very good reason.  If it were, we should be able to, at least, mirror two USB's.

Well I have two enterprise class servers and they both offer internal usb bootable os options so this statement is weak at best

Edited December 13, 20196 yr by mrbilky

14 hours ago, Abzstrak said:

 

Sorta, but not really... who wants to be forced to boot of of a usb flash drive in this day and age?  They need to fix their licenses to not be centric around a single drive, or, at least, allow us to mirror a couple of drives since they are not reliable.  I wouldn't care as much if they allowed us to boot off of anything and simply have the drive there for the license, but making us use the drive kills it, and it's really stupid to force it on all users.

You're kind of missing the point, it merely loads the OS from the USB to RAM.  There's little point in dedicating a SSD or HDD to boot duties as you gain nothing from it.  Just uses up a SATA slot for an operating system that is less than 200MB to be loaded and run from RAM.

13 hours ago, Abzstrak said:

USB flash drives are not enterprise class devices in any way, shape or form... this is not common practice for a very good reason. 

As merely a dedicated user of unRAID I dont pretend to be an authority on Limetech's market strategy but from my time around these forums and experience with the os it has always been clear to me that unRAID is not an enterprise class, or even business class, solution. It is a consumer class system targeted at home users. Any aspirations beyond that have not yet been realized.

 

13 hours ago, Abzstrak said:

More options don't exist ONLY because not enough of us (paying customers) are complaining about how stupid this forced booting from a USB flash drive is.

Users arent complaining because, from what i can tell, the vast majority of us dont think it is stupid and have rarely if ever had issues with it.

16 hours ago, mrbilky said:

Well I have two enterprise class servers and they both offer internal usb bootable os options so this statement is weak at best

Heck i'm pretty sure VMWare used to (maybe still does?) sell product on USB sticks, since they do the same thing as unRAID does.