Unraid 7.3.0 Beta 1

Today we're releasing Unraid 7.3.0 into public beta headlined by one of the most-requested infrastructure changes we've made in years: Internal Boot, and with it, a fundamentally new way to think about your license.

There's also a meaningful set of improvements across storage, the File Manager, and virtualization. 

Note: This is a beta release. We recommend testing on non-production systems and welcome bug reports via our new bug tracker.

Let's get into it!

Internal Boot + New Licensing Options

Flash drives have always been the foundation of how Unraid boots and how your license is validated. For a long time, that worked well — but USB flash reliability has been on a steady decline. Manufacturers have quietly shifted to cheaper NAND, endurance ratings have dropped, and flash failures have become more common. Add in the physical reality of a drive sitting in a USB slot indefinitely, getting bumped, running hot, or simply aging out, and you have a single point of failure with no good redundancy story. With 7.3.0, that changes.

Internal Boot lets you install and boot Unraid from an internal drive: an NVMe, SSD, eMMC or existing storage device rather than your flash device. Boot times are faster, the system is more resilient, and it unlocks new ways to manage your license that simply weren't possible before.

The most important thing to know: existing users are not being forced to change anything. If your current setup works for you, you can keep using it exactly as you do today.

Existing Users: Your Current License Remains Valid

If you already run Unraid from a USB flash device, nothing changes unless you want it to. Flash boot with flash-based licensing remains fully supported, no transfer required, no relicensing required.

If you do want to move to Internal Boot, you have two paths:

Path 1: Internal Boot + Flash Licensing

If your system doesn't have TPM 2.0, or you simply don't want to use it, you can set up Internal Boot and leave your licensed flash drive connected. Your flash drive remains the licensing anchor and your license stays valid without any changes needed.

What you get: faster boot times, improved boot reliability, and significantly less day-to-day dependence on your flash drive. All the upside of Internal Boot, with no changes to how your license works.

Path 2: Internal Boot + TPM Based Licensing

If your system was built in 2019 or later, there's a very good chance your motherboard already has TPM 2.0 support — often enabled through firmware, with no dedicated chip required. With TPM-based licensing, your Unraid license is anchored to the motherboard, so you can remove the flash drive entirely after setup. Pull the flash drive entirely. Your license stays put.

For supported systems, this is the most streamlined long-term option. But for existing users, it is a choice, not a requirement.

Many older motherboards that lack an onboard TPM include a TPM header where an inexpensive add-on TPM 2.0 module can be installed. Check your motherboard manual if you're interested in going fully flashless.

New Users: Unraid Picks the Best Available Path

For new users, Unraid will automatically select the best available licensing option based on your hardware. If a TPM 2.0 chip is detected, your trial or license is tied to it automatically, even if you begin setup from a flash drive. If TPM is not available, Unraid falls back to traditional flash-based licensing.

New users don't need to choose between licensing methods up front. Unraid handles it automatically.

Internal Boot and Licensing: Connected, But Not the Same Thing

Internal Boot determines where Unraid boots from. Licensing determines what hardware your license is tied to. These are separate choices, and that distinction matters:

• Boot internally + and keep your flash drive for licensing
• Boot internally + and use TPM for licensing, if your hardware supports it

This is especially important for older systems: even without TPM, you can still get the full performance and reliability benefits of Internal Boot by keeping your licensed flash device connected.

Why This Matters

This update gives Unraid users a more stable and more flexible foundation going forward. For systems with TPM 2.0, it creates a better long-term licensing path where the license lives on the motherboard rather than a USB device, reducing a common point of failure and making fully flashless operation possible. For everyone else, flash-based licensing remains fully supported.

Bottom line: faster boots, fewer failure points, and more control over how your license is held. Your old setup still works. This is addition, not replacement.

A Better First Boot

New users getting started with 7.3.0 will be greeted by a completely redesigned onboarding wizard that gets your server configured and ready in about three minutes. It walks you through server name, timezone, language, SSH access, theme, boot method selection, and plugin installation in a clean step-by-step interface, with a summary screen to review everything before it's applied.

The boot method choice, be it USB/Flash Drive or Internal Boot, is built directly into the flow, so new users encounter it from day one rather than discovering it later buried in settings.

Existing users switching to Internal Boot can access the same wizard at Settings → User Preferences → Onboarding Wizard.

Storage Enhancements

ZFS users get a notable quality-of-life upgrade in this release: you can now control ZFS ARC max sizing directly from the WebGUI with no more manual config edits needed. See: Settings → Disk Settings → Tunable (zfs_arc_max)

Corrupted files are now surfaced in the ZFS pool status so issues are visible at a glance, and overall pool and drive health visibility has been improved across the board. We've also fixed a ZFS issue: ZFS pools that were waking once every 24 hours in certain configurations will now stay asleep as expected. Additional improvements include smarter duplicate drive detection with clearer messaging to help you catch misidentified drives before they cause problems. We've also fixed a bug where drives could spin down mid-operation during a parity copy as part of a parity swap — an edge case that could interrupt what should be a clean, unattended process.

File Manager Improvements

The File Manager received a significant performance pass in this release. Same-filesystem move operations are faster, upload behavior is improved, and a number of edge cases around path handling, directory naming, and rename operations have been resolved.

Virtualization

VM workflow improvements include better System Devices visibility, improved custom VNC port validation, and a fix for VMs created from user templates incorrectly inheriting the source VM's MAC address — a subtle but impactful bug for anyone managing multiple VMs from templates.

One More Thing

Tailscale now has a dedicated stub page in the WebGUI's Settings page, making it easier to discover and install the plugin if you haven't already. If you're not running Tailscale on your Unraid server, this is your nudge!

Note: This is a beta release. We recommend testing on non-production systems and welcome bug reports via our new bug tracker. Thanks in advance!