Does replacing the USB boot require a new config?


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Hi. 

 

So today I am using from a no name, no brand, generic USB drive to two Kingston thumb drives. The idea is to create a boot key and a duplicate in case of failure, and possibly store a backup of the appdata on both thumb drives. I have followed the wiki to create the new keys using the USB creator app for windows. I have NOT downloaded the flash or used the legacy method.

 

Question: do I now just reboot from one of the new thumb drives and then activate it? Will my existing config still be valid or must I back up somehow? Also, the new USB will boot from a 3.0 port as the old one was on a 2.0 port. Will this affect the process?

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1 hour ago, NMGMarques said:

Question: do I now just reboot from one of the new thumb drives and then activate it?

If you do that, your old flash drive will no longer work, the license will be moved to the new drive.

 

The files you need to transfer all in the config folder, so keep a backup of that folder. The easiest way is to click on the flash drive on the main GUI page and download the backup from that page.

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1 hour ago, NMGMarques said:

the new USB will boot from a 3.0 port as the old one was on a 2.0 port.

Best if you just continue to boot from USB2 port. Speed has no benefit for the Unraid flash drive and USB3 has been a problem for some.

 

1 hour ago, NMGMarques said:

backup of the appdata on both thumb drives

Just use the CA Backup plugin.

 

You definitely don't want to have 2 Unraid boot flash drives plugged in at the same time.

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2 minutes ago, trurl said:

You definitely don't want to have 2 Unraid boot flash drives plugged in at the same time.

Kind of figured that out when I ran into issue booting up. I renamed the Backup flash to UNRAID_BK and no longer have issue booting. I had a noticeable boot time gain with USB3 vs USB2 for some reason. 

 

In any case I am now booted and running from one of the two new flash drives. Now all that is left is to create the backup strategy.

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2 minutes ago, trurl said:

boot time gain is unimportant and not worth the risk of the other problems people have had booting from USB3.

I'll keep that in mind. If I run into any issues I'll switch to some USB 2 port. Considering that I am backing up the appdata share and that it has several gigs, I'd rather it copy to the USB 3 for speed to keep docker downtime to a minimum.

 

Speaking of things USB related, I am now successfully booted and my boot USB shows up as the flash device. The second USB shows up as an unassigned sda. I suppose I now have to "assign" it to get it to show so I can point my backups to it?

 

Will this USB count towards my device limit? I am guessing so. Meaning this will bring my total to 4 devices leaving me open to two moer, right? Since I gather the boot doesn't count.

 

image.png.5d80842ee46748a19087c64f40c7764c.png

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I would like to suggest that you use the Flash Drive backup that is a part of the Unraid GUI     Main    >>> Boot Device    Now click on 'Flash' under "DEVICE" column,  On the "Flash Device Settings" tab, you will find a 'FLASH BACKUP' button.   That will save a zipped copy of the complete contents of your flash drive to the Downloads directory/folder of your PC. 

 

The reason that I don't recommend the sole usage of the CA backup option for the flash drive is that when you need it, you can't get to this backup without jumping through a lot of hoops.  (In most cases, you end up have too build and config an bastardized Unraid boot drive just to recover the backup!)

Edited by Frank1940
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3 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

I would like to suggest that you use the Flash Drive backup that is a part of the Unraid GUI     Main    >>> Boot Device    Now click on 'Flash' under "DEVICE" column,  On the "Flash Device Settings" tab, you will find a 'FLASH BACKUP' button.   That will save a zipped copy of the complete contents of your flash drive to the Downloads directory/folder of your PC. 

 

The reason that I don't recommend the sole usage of the CA backup option for the flash drive is that when you need it, you can't get to this backup without jumping through a lot of hoops.  (In most cases, you end up have too build and config an bastardized Unraid boot drive just to recover the backup!)

Thanks for the suggestion. Is there any easy way to backup the flash and appdata to the backup USB drive AND an offsite backup like Google Drive or Onedrive or Dropbox?

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