Unraid 7.3 and the LincStation N1/N2: a Good Excuse to Ditch the Boot Stick

Unraid 7.3.0 can finally boot from an internal drive instead of a USB stick. The LincStation N1/N2 happens to have the hardware that makes this painless, so if you're shopping for an all-flash NAS, here's why it's worth a look.

What actually changed

Until now, every Unraid box booted off a USB flash drive, and your license lived on that same stick. Fine in theory. In practice the flash drive is usually the flimsiest thing in an otherwise solid-state machine, and when it dies your server goes down with it.

Unraid 7.3.0, out since May 12, 2026, adds Internal Boot. You can install and run Unraid from an internal NVMe, SSD, or eMMC drive. If your motherboard has a TPM 2.0 chip, you can also pin the license to the board instead of the stick.

That second part is the bit people sleep on. Where Unraid boots and what your license is tied to are two separate decisions. You can move the boot to an internal drive and still keep flash licensing if you'd rather not touch the license at all.

The 7.3 changes that matter for a small all-flash box

Skipping the full changelog, here's what's relevant if you're running something compact and SSD-only like the LincStation:

Internal Boot: Boot from an internal NVMe, SSD, or eMMC. Boots faster, and there's one less thing to fail. You can also mirror two devices into a ZFS boot pool if you want redundancy.

TPM licensing: Got TPM 2.0 on the board? The license can live there, and the USB stick can come out for good.

ZFS 2.4.1: Corrupted files now show up right in the pool status instead of hiding in a log, and ARC max size is a real setting now (Settings, Disk Settings, Tunable). On a 16 GB machine that control matters, because ZFS will happily eat your RAM otherwise.

Docker fixed MAC address: Containers can hold a stable MAC across restarts, which saves you headaches with DHCP reservations and firewall rules.

Security fixes: Two local privilege-escalation bugs got patched, along with a handful of package updates. Worth upgrading for this alone.

Why the N1/N2 lines up so well

The N1/N2 is an all-flash NAS. Four M.2 2280 NVMe slots, two 2.5-inch SATA bays, and a chassis roughly the footprint of a paperback. Two things about it match 7.3 almost suspiciously well.

First, it has eMMC on board. There's a 128 GB eMMC module soldered to the N1/N2, and on older Unraid it was mostly dead weight, since the OS insisted on booting from USB. Internal Boot finally gives it a job. You boot off the eMMC and don't sacrifice a single drive bay to do it.

Second, the CPU does TPM 2.0. The N1/N2 runs an Intel Celeron N5105, which supports TPM 2.0 and even made Microsoft's Windows 11 CPU list. So it clears the bar for TPM licensing. Anchor the license to the board, pull the stick, done.

Stack those up and the N1/N2 can run about as clean as a NAS gets: boot off the internal eMMC, license held by the TPM, no USB stick anywhere, and no spinning drives to begin with.

Heads up: TPM usually ships disabled. You may have to switch it on in the BIOS first, where it might be labeled fTPM, PTT, or Security Device Support, before Unraid will see it.

If you're still deciding whether to buy

One of the first complaints new users have about Unraid is the USB stick. "Wait, I have to leave a flash drive plugged in, and if it fails I'm stuck?" 7.3 mostly retires that complaint.

You don't have to configure any of this by hand on a fresh install either. Unraid reads your hardware and picks the licensing method for you, TPM if it finds one, flash if it doesn't, and the setup wizard walks you through the rest in a couple of minutes, boot method included.

So a NAS bought today and running 7.3 can be silent and fully solid-state, booting from internal eMMC, licensed to the board, and running ZFS with health and tuning you can actually see in the UI. That's a cleaner starting point than the same box had a year ago.

FAQ

Can the LincStation N1/N2 boot Unraid from its internal eMMC? 

Yes. 7.3's Internal Boot supports eMMC, and the N1/N2 has a 128 GB eMMC module on board, so it's a natural fit.

Do I still need the USB stick afterward? 

Only if you stick with flash licensing. Move to TPM licensing, which the N1/N2's CPU supports, and the stick can come out.

Will I lose my license or config? 

Not if you back up the flash drive first. Old flash-boot setups still work, and the switch is additive rather than a wipe. Back up before you start so you've got a way back.

Is 7.3 worth it even without Internal Boot? 

For most people, yes. The security patches and the ZFS and Docker improvements stand on their own.

What if my unit's TPM isn't enabled? 

Run Internal Boot with flash licensing instead: boot off the eMMC for the speed and reliability, and leave the licensed stick plugged in as the anchor. It's also worth checking the BIOS to see if a firmware TPM is hiding in there.

Worth the upgrade?

7.3.0 doesn't break anything. Your current setup keeps working as is. But on the N1/N2 in particular, Internal Boot plus TPM licensing closes the last obvious gap: no spinning drives, no USB stick, license on the board. If you've been looking for a reason to lose the boot stick, this is a good one.

Check that the TPM is detected and the license reads valid after you upgrade, and back up your flash config before changing anything.