Unraid Serial Crack

I've been looking around as I'm about to build a nas, and unRAID looks good. Until I saw the license was tied to a usb key - so the whole system depends on the one bit of hardware that is the least reliable in the whole server! If the USB key goes on reboot, so does the array and you'd be pulling disks out one by one to get the data off them! That would be bad enough, but it seems that you don't allow the license key to be reissued to another (working) usb key either.

I understand you have to do licensing, but tying it to the life of one crappy (they all are.) usb key is ridiculous. Which is sad, as the software looks good, but no way am I going to rely on a usb key working to access my data. My key is 3 years old ============================================================= Lime Technology, LLC - Online Order ============================================================= Invoice No.: 3215 Order No.: 130051485 Date: filecheck didn't find any problem so far the key is only used at boot and shutdown cause i chose to save the logs all the rest is done in ram and on the cache drive and like my colleagues above said so far Tom has replaced all licenses where a key died on the owner so we can't complain.

Also for the future Tom has expressed the wish to move off the USb boots. Nobody knows when but lets say it is on the road map somewhere.

Yup, I'll pile on. USB flash does not die THAT often from just sitting there.

It isn't being hammered by writes (which cause wear), or frankly even reads (which don't cause wear). I think I'm on year three of a basic Jetflash with no trouble at all and I'm fairly active on my flash playing with plug-ins updating to the newest unraid version etc.

Any other sugestion?

UnRAID - Commercial and OpenSource GPL2 solution. A modified version of. SnapRAID, unRAID, FlexRAID, ZFS, Btrfs, Storage Spaces. Number of failures. You give us your cell number. We give you breaking news. Only get the TXTs you choose. Opt out any time. Cape Cod's #1 news source.

And there ARE higher and lower quality flash. If you are desparatly worried, get your hands on an SLC based flash, use a well known MLC, and avoid like the plague TLC flash of any brand. And as also mentioned, if downtime is not acceptable while you wait for tom to send you a new key, then buy two to keep one as a bkacup.

Just be sure you keep the backup up-to-date with your array's config. Thanks for all the feedback!:-) I get what you are all saying, but my point is wider than if you can get a new key today, and that the USB key might not fail as it isn't written to often. Lets imagine that I set up a NAS with unRAID, by two license keys and put one in the emergency supplies.

A couple of years go by, power goes out or some other problem, NAS reboots and the USB is corrupted - not an impossible assumption, particularly given it is know that USB drives deteriorate with age as well as with activity. Go to the cupboard for the spare key, assuming you can find it, and it to is dead. OK, you are now reliant on Lime Technology still being there, still answering emails, and still re issuing keys - all things you have no control over. In fact, if anything I have learned that generally you have to assume the opposite ie I have rebuilt quite a few servers, gone to install software that was running on them previously, and not been able to as the company owning the software has either disappeared or been bought by someone and the activation process no longer works - and even if you have a phone number (if they have been taken over) they say upgrade to a different product (for $x.). I've even seen business stuck doing that after a disaster and unable to read their backups that were in propitiatory format! (yes, I agree, poor management on their behalf).

So as a general rule, you don't want to use anything that will result in getting to your data requiring a single external entity that may or may not be there. Which is why a few years ago I swapped from be expensive servers with custom parts to cheap ones with easily replaceable ones and more backups (you can never have too many backups.) Thus my issue with the very failable USB key - the uncertainty that at a future date that you can replace it if you need to (and the time it might take). Yes, today you can. In two years time in an emergency? No one can say. You're concerns about LimeTech not being around and leaving you high and dry have been addressed in the past. There is a path to dealing with it.

I won't speak to it as the mods are in a better position. And of course your DATA, the most important part, is always available by mounting your drives in a working machine and reading them. And of course as to both your usbs going bad. If you are that paranoid then you should be regularly refreshing/testing/rotating the usb, keeping a back up of all your data irrespective of LimeTech's untimely demise, and should be keeping up on the status of your critical infrastructure providers to know if they are going the way of the dodo. Frankly even if this wasn't on a USB you should be validating your ability to recover from a server failure via OS backups and audits. To be as paranoid as you are means you should be just as worried about an HDD failure taking out your OS, and a reinstall failing because the company will no longer activate a license. This is a recovery plan problem, not a usb or hdd issue.