USB full distro install - Pro's and Con's discussion

[phonic-otg]

Hey, Kubuntu community, this is a casual discussion discussing the Pro's and Con's of using USB drives (Regular NAND type or Micro SD in card reader) or external SSD's with full installs.
So far my experience has been a good one.
My first is a (20.04) Live USB with persistence on a 64GB Sandisk Cruse. I assume it is a 2.0 speed as loading into RAM and later retrieving programs and files is slowish. I use this as a troubleshooting device mainly.

My second is a 256GB Sandisk Micro SD card in a tiny USB C reader with a full 20.04 distro install that I use when travelling as my win10 laptop has not much drive space for dual-boot due to games. It has been working great and a little faster than the 64GB USB.

I have a recent issue with the SD card (in another thread) where I have been using it about 5-8hrs per day for a month, and hardly much before that. Claydoh advised me in that thread...

As to the age of the sdcard, it is still worth keeping an eye on, from my own experience using these on various systems specifically to run an OS in recent years. Even good quality Samsung’s would die in well less than a year. They are just not designed for the constant simultaneous reads/writes an OS needs, particularly a full-featured desktop distro. Just something to keep in mind.

So I have decided to use a regular USB with better write-erase capabilities. I'm thinking a Samsung USB C 3.1 Flash Drive DUO Plus 256GB. Or should I go with a 1TB SSD.

What have been your experiences and what would you recommend?

[Snowhog]

I'd be in agreement with what claydoh stated. Using storage devices, which is what USB Thumb Drives and SD cards are designed for, as functioning OS devices is tempting fate.

[claydoh]

sdcards kinda suck for using as on OS drive, outside of things like Raspberry Pis and the like

USB 3 sticks much less so, particularly decent quality ones. This is the key, as cheepee USB sticks are likely to be dodgy to begin with.
External ssds will be even better, speed wise. And probably longevity-wise as well.

I have been using this 64 gb low profile drive for a few years now:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...=UTF8&th=1
it was a bit more expensive for the 64gb when I got it. Here it is with a USB-C adapter, negating all its slimness
But my Lenovo 10e ChromeOS tablet only has one port lol. And no Sdcard slot.

The Duo unit you are looking at seems like a good choice. Looks solid, and should be quite reliable and fast.


this other one I had for a while as well, and is extremely slim:
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-32GB-..._title_ce?th=1
However, the model I had was metal, and this new one is plastic-y. These slim sticks can get warm, so I prefer metal body.

I have looked for lower profile USB-C drives, but those don't seem to exist, as they can't fit circuitry inside the plug like USB 2 can.

I also have my old nvme drive I recently replaced with a larger one, so I got a drive enclosure for it. Instant portable OS


My slim Samsung USB stick is one of the faster drives, at least among low profile and slim drives, so running an OS is much smoother.
I recommend this if cost or physical size is a factor. Get two, and have one a backup as it would be easy to simply clone one to the other.
This is a good idea to do if you stick with sdcards, as well.

The Duo drive would be a good choice all around, I'd say.

If cost or size is less an issue, then a portable SSD is going to be an even more pleasant experience due to the speed bump.

[jglen490]

The only thing that goes on an SD Card or a USB thumb drive are files to be transferred for one system to another, or OS installers. I never use them as primary processing devices. I don't even use them as backup devices, although SSDs are getting better and may show up for that duty some day. SSD or NVME are the only drive types I use on my system, and those are always safely inside the (desktop or laptop) case. Why limit transfer speeds, even USB 3 or USB-C?

[claydoh]

USB drives are perfectly fine for the occasional to semi-normal use cases, particularly on devices with limited and non-upgradeable onboard storage. Mini-PCs and Chromebooks/Laptops with emmc storage, for example.
R PI types of devices of course are other common use cases for sdcards, as are those rare x86 tablets with no other slot type.
They are perfect for installing a distro purely for longer-term, real-world testing and experimentation purposes, without the limitations of a live session. Or as emergency/recovery types of situations.

But of course, it should be assumed that they are not going to be long-lasting or reliable. Except for my Samsung above, with nearly 2 years of dual-boot and storage use on one of my previous Chromebooks.

[phonic-otg]

I am going to ditch the Micro SD card as an OS drive (but not till I try restoring it first).
I have discovered that my Lenovo Flex 6 (14") 14ARR AMD laptop/tablet also called a Yoga can have it's M.2 NVMe SSD upgraded so I am going with a Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series 1TB M.2 SSD.
I will use the old 512GB M.2 from the laptop in an external case, which I need to clone win10 to the new drive before I can install Kubuntu in dual-boot, and use it as a back-up drive.
This is the external case from Amazon.

[claydoh]

I will bet that you also have a SATA drive slot in that laptop, which is another option. My Lenovo Ideapad came with an NVME m.2 drive, and I bought a SATA ssd and cloned Windows from the m.2 to the SATA drive. It was the economical choice at the time.

This might be another option to add to the mix, if you don't already have a drive there.

It is cool to have choices.

[jglen490]

RPI is the exception - to all of it! It shouldn't be in the discussion because of its fundamental design. While it is possible to have a RPI with an SSD or even a hard drive as a primary device, that (for now) is an exception to the default design.

The occasional external SD or thumb drive, particularly as a recovery or restoration tool, is valid as a special purpose primary device- of course. The SD and thumb drive are "kissin' cousins" to other solid state devices, but just don't have the same resiliency or longevity as their relatives. Using an external hard drive or SSD as a primary OS device makes no sense either, if for no other reason than performance loss; with the same exceptional emergency/recovery/restore use cases as SD cards and thumb drives.

[phonic-otg]

I found this as a guide to check the integrity of SD-cards & Micro-SD-cards.
https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.co...ds-replacement

[GreyGeek]

I experimented with using a 64Gb USB 3.0 stick with a full installation on it. Configured for my Acer it wouldn't give me my KDE DE when I attempted to boot it to machines with a different GPU.

So, for years I carried around a KDE LTS LiveUSB with persistence in my watch pocket. It always booted up and ran fine. Not fast, but usable. My FF bookmarks came along with FF, and some additional apps as well.

Since covid, and my wife's health problems, our mobility is confined to our apartment, and it shows in our weight gains. A couple of months ago my USB stick fell out of my pocket when I fetched my keys and after a moment of thought I realized that I hadn't used it in over three years, when I tested my neighbor's HP laptop to see if KDE LTS would run on it. (It would and he's been happy with it ever since!) So, I put it in my USB case along with the couple dozen others.

[jglen490]

Not saying that limited use cases are invalid, just that limited use cases are, well, limited

[wago80]

Hi, I would like to add my experience regarding the topic.

I work for 2 different companies and also as a freelance programmer. So in order to avoid using/carrying my laptop or several company/clients computers (in which I always have some software or files missing) I decided to install kubuntu (ubuntu with KDE) in an external 2 TB USB 3.1 HDD.

I've been using this "portable" OS by 4 years now, in at least 10 different computers (from laptops to desktops), as a everyday system.
I must say that I'm really happy with that. Now wherever I go I have everything I need to work and I don't have to carry out any laptop or tools, just this USB drive (and it cable, of course =)), which I would carry either way with some files on it.

In my experience, the performance is no different from the one if the OS were installed in the main hard drive laptop or pc (I am talking HDD). I guess the performance will increase in a SDD, but I can also get an external SDD and I guess the performance will increase too.
Of course, it also depends on the hardware. Is not the same performance in a core2duo with 6 GB of ram (that I am using right now) than in a I7 with 12 GB (that I use in my other work),

So if you plan to move from static OS to mobile, I will say go for it. You will no regret it.

Thank you and I hope I could collaborate with the main discussion.

[jglen490]

That is an interesting use case, and is fine where corporate and system policy allows that activity.

If it works for you, then good. But also note that your "system" is indicated as an actual drive ("HDD"), which has much more reliability, resiliency, and life expectancy than an SD card or a thumb drive - which relates back to the OP's case.

Your use case will not work where corporate policy, especially as implemented in computer system/network policy disallows it. Where I work, if you are a user (not a "registered "administrator") and you plug any device other than a keyboard into a USB port, that computer phones home and calls in the helicopters, from which men dressed in black come rappelling down ropes and take you away to dark rooms for "further questioning". Well maybe not literally, but policy would prevent that from happening. So your use case would apply where security is less concerning to the company you are visiting.

Not a bad use case, just possibly limiting

[kc1di]

I've use usb's with persistence in the past but never done a full install and don't think I would do that. I've found usb stick to be not that reliable in the long term. I think using them for file storage or maybe even system backups may work ok. But for daily use as a operating system too many read writes. And to much chance of corruption.

[jlittle]

...you plug any device other than a keyboard into a USB port,,,

That exception is over, see f.ex. this ZDnet news.