Installing Linux on a USB? Consider This.

Server — 17/10/2022 · 21 Comments



Today we will talk about a warning when you are installing Linux on a flash drive. They do have limited re-write cycles, so be prepared to make regular backups.
#Linux #usbdrive #switchedtolinux

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21 Comments

  2. Outstanding work.

    I only have one thing I would add. I too favour spinning disks in some cases. There isn't a perfect answer re SSD read/write limits. But THE one reason why in a portable drive I would make consideration on drive choice – is this. If I am carrying a drive around in my backpack/ruck sack – and I assume some shock/transit risk – I move away from spindle to SSD external. The SSD is not wholly immune to G shock or poor treatment, but it doesn't have the fundamental G shock limits of a mechanical drive.

    If its a drive sat on shelf and in lab only usage (for example) – the larger cap, better cost, and frankly less wear limited spindle drive can have a place. As ever, this falls into best tool for the job basis of consideration.

    Thanks for the great video.

  4. You should do a video on the Ventoy utility. I just ran across this and found it SO helpful. It basicly turns a usb into a housing for multiple iso install images. so great to have one flash drive to rule them all.

  6. Personally, I would probably go for a USB4 or thunderbolt external NVME enclosue. They tend to be a lot smaller, and if I want this pocket operating system, I'm likely to be carrying and moving it around quite a bit, so I'm not sure how much I would trust HDDs.

  8. I do the opposite. I have Linux on my PCs internal SSDs and Windows on a USB SSD. That way Windows is ONLY on my system when booting from USB. performance surprisingly isn’t too shabby.

  9. I do the opposite. I have Linux on my PCs internal SSDs and Windows on a USB SSD. That way Windows is ONLY on my system when booting from USB. performance surprisingly isn’t too shabby.

  10. I do the opposite. I have Linux on my PCs internal SSDs and Windows on a USB SSD. That way Windows is ONLY on my system when booting from USB. performance surprisingly isn’t too shabby.

  12. bummer; I've failed .. seems my Controller4 isn't old enough to have nor recognise either A USB nor a SATA HD! .. so, now what??? .. I mean, I couldn't even find A Tablet on line that could use either of those either! . as for Booting an ISO, those are assigned to Web Addresses – free to all.
    . out of curiosity, what Year or Century are you working out of?

  13. I have been a Gentoo Linux user since 2003 and I think everybody already knows that when you update or install packages in Gentoo, that it compiles each one from scratch and that, in turn, leads to a lot more reading from and writing to storage media.

    On my my home systems running Gentoo (my philosophy with computers is lots of "old cr*p", especially Thinkpads, rather than one or two computers with the latest hardware), I always use a small and cheap SSD (usually 120GB) for the main Gentoo OS and, if there's the space in the machine, a second mechanical drive for general file storage. So far I have had one failure in an SSD in my living room media PC, and that SSD was probably 3-4 years old.

    One thing that the Gentoo developers do recommend is to use tmpfs to do all of the compilation in RAM which not only speeds up compilation but also dramatically reduces reads and writes to storage – the downside of that is that to compile a big package like gcc requires at least 2GB of tmpfs, which may be a restriction on older computers.

    But tmpfs might be a good solution for those worried about excessive storage media wear.

  14. Regarding lifespan, would an NVMe stick in a USB enclosure have the same lifespan as traditional USB SSDs? And also how would I multi-boot an external USB SSD? Say I wanted 4 or 5 different versions of Linux, pfSense, Proxmox on a stick and wanted to try various flavors from time to time.… how to do? What kind of boot manager?

  16. Hah! I posted a comment that was deleted by YT I guess- I described using a USB3-MSATA metal enclosure for 8 bucks from China and a Kingston 256G MSATA SSD for 40 bucks from Amaz…I did put the URLs on the comment, so mebbe that's why YT did not post it(or removed it).

  18. In my experience when an Hdd fails it's usually the mechanical parts like spindle that you can replace and save your data. SSD or USB you just wondering why it's empty until you realize it is definitely the correct drive, but it's empty.

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