Installing Linux on a USB? Consider This.

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

-----------
Support Switched to Linux!
-----------
Social Media:
🐦 Twitter: @switchedtolinux
🐸 Gab: @switchedtolinux
💡 Minds: @switchedtolinux
Reddit: /r/switchedtolinux
-----------

[Puzzlers]

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.

[squidbeard]

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.

[michaelkeith]

I still have my first flash drive, a 64 Mb. It is at least 15 years old and still works.

[AdmVrln]

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.

[riseabove]

I disagree. SSD drives have a much longer life than a USB flash drive. Besides you can grab a cheap 120GB SSD for $20. So much faster and useful than those slow platter drives (external USB hard drives). Platter drives are sensitive to vibration, dropped, moved, and must be handled with care especially while powered on where as an SSD drive does not require any of that care. Sure you have read/write limitation but in no way will you ever meet that limitation in it's lifetime with an SSD drive. This is an old school mentality holding onto old traditions.

You will hate using Linux on a slow platter drive being as slow as it is and you will kick yourself when that portable USB hard drive fails faster than an SSD drive does because of all that portable movement puts wear on moving parts. The heads on a platter are only microns of an inch from each other so once they touch all that data is scrapped.

I have used Linux on USB drives, SD cards, and SSD drives and I have yet to run into a problem on the SSD drives. And for you all to know - Raspberry PI's run Linux on SD cards and they have the same limitations as USB flash drives. SSD drives are designed to be used and abused with data. They have built-in error correction unlike USB flash and SD cards. Early on SSD drives failed not because of the memory but because of bad controllers which has been perfected and improved since the beginnings of SSD drives. Pickup a cheap Patriot SSD drive from Amazon for $20 for a 120GB or $30 for a 240GB. Fast, reliable, and enjoyable experience. Don't be miserable with a slow platter drive just because it's the old traditional way.

[turyng-orjs]

Yes, USB flash drives do wear out, I experienced it myself. However, I was using EXT4 with journaling... Then I switched to F2FS, which is designed specifically for flash memory, my drive is stable a longer period of time. I suppose EXT2 can also work, as it is without journaling.

[steventechno]

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.

[ArniesTech]

I am still going strong with 2.5 Inch HDDs as storage drives and I absolutely love to have a few live sticks at hand 💪😊

[yakadoodledongywongy]

Depending on the use case and personal preference a better option (for me at least) was to remove the wifi card which freed up an M2 Sata port. Put a secondary M2 Sata hard drive in there. Then just use an external WIFI USB adapter (which are smaller than most thumb drives so it actually doesn't look bad).

[erdoganozel]

Thank you for your feedback. is there any video you recommend how to prepare an external Linux drive ?

[kyledupont]

You can also use a high endurance removable drive, they are a bit slower but are made for lots of cycles such as a security camera that records 24 hrs a day

[danielcoffman]

I’ve also found that the EXT3/4 file system doesn’t beat the crap out of your external HDD. So the USB limitations don’t really show up.

[ysgvpij]

Maybe I missed it, but
stating average r/w
cycles & speed of a
SSD vs a FD vs a HD
would be good info.

[oleksandrshabelnyk]

Yes, it happened to me. I have a Samsung Plus Fit 256GB flash drive, a very fast one, which got worn out after like 6 months. I became simply too slow. I think it was because of EXT4. Now I used the same flash drive but with F2FS, as it makes apparently like 70% less read/writes. Do you think it should help? Hopefully it will...

[rostislavpareto]

Hi! Is there speed tests of using External USB Flash drive vs External SSD vs External HDD for use as main boot drive? Not live CD.

[BrucesWorldofStuff]

Tom I use the same sandisk USB3 disk but it's a 125 one for my Ubuntu server as the OS and the storage is symlinked to both spinning drives. It has worked for 2 years with no issues so far. Yes I know they fail so I have a backup one ready to go. It just updates and the rest of the load is handled y the spinners... Lol
Thanks for the video!

LLAP 🖖

[wateryevents]

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.

[untermench]

I run LINUX from a flash drive but it is a read-only ISO written to the drive, which simulates a CD-ROM, so I don't have the read/write problem.

[jordan]

I don't know too much about linux.
Is it okay to use Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon from a 30Gb persistence volume I created on my phone using droiddrive? I just wanted to use mostly for video chats I have OBS, and droid cam set up so basically my phone is the webcam/mic/OS..., It actually works better than my windows 11 on the SSD on the same computer. I use mostly firefox and set it up to cache in RAM everything seems to work fine. I also didn't want the drivers to be just for this computer.
But wasn't sure if it would be best to install it to the volume or keep persistence.

[another-niko-pfp-holder]

Is there a way to approximately check how much cycles a USB has been through? I did a full Fedora install on mine and want to switch to an OpenSUSE persistent because I heard it's faster, but I don't know if it would be worth re-writing the whole disk at this point