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#1 2011-04-26 12:31:51

FlyingHappy
Member
From: Cincinnati, OH
Registered: 2011-04-18
Posts: 192

USB Drive question

Is it any different to install arch to a 500GB usb drive or an 8GB usb stick?

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#2 2011-04-26 13:23:11

byte
Member
From: Düsseldorf (DE)
Registered: 2006-05-01
Posts: 2,046

Re: USB Drive question

Nope, no difference.
But the USB stick is slower and smaller. ;-)


1000

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#3 2011-04-26 13:38:44

Darkzom
Member
Registered: 2011-03-15
Posts: 28

Re: USB Drive question

Hmm actually I thought it would not be a good idea as Flash drives have a fixed lifespan when it comes to cycles of writing data, so putting an OS there and using it for a long time would easily reach the maximum writes of the memory and therefore you will end up with an unusable flash drive with possible loss of data.

A standard HD connected via USB does not have that problem as at the end it is only a regular drive.

Plz correct me if I am wrong smile

Anyway I use to always carry around a USB stick with Ubuntu installed regularly just in case of urgent needs (e.g. booting linux in the laptop from my job when in the hotel, recovering from windows disasters, etc...) as it is much faster than a live-cd/usb image, but I try not to use it very much.

Best regards wink

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#4 2011-04-26 14:02:36

RiceKills
Member
Registered: 2010-05-31
Posts: 72

Re: USB Drive question

I did this, the only thing you need to make sure that you use uuids in fstab and don't use the autodetect hook in mkinitcpio. also I recommend using an ext2 file system with the noatime option to reduce writes and increase life expectancy.

Last edited by RiceKills (2011-04-26 14:04:01)

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#5 2011-04-26 14:05:56

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: USB Drive question

RiceKills wrote:

I did this, the only thing you need to make sure that you use uuids in fstab and don't use the autodetect hook in mkinitcpio. also I recommend using an ext2 file system with the noatime option to reduce writes and increase life expectancy.

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#6 2011-04-26 19:09:22

FlyingHappy
Member
From: Cincinnati, OH
Registered: 2011-04-18
Posts: 192

Re: USB Drive question

Ok, I was just wondering because I was going to try Arch on a usb stick or drive for playing around with on my home laptop.  My wife uses the computer as well so I don't want her to have to mess with the grub and stuff (she doesn't like when I change things since I wiped windows with ubuntu during install accidentally).

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#7 2011-04-27 02:06:16

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: USB Drive question

Perhaps you might be interested in trying a CFcard which has true IDE capability.  This permits running with an adapter from IDE or a cf2 sata adapter. 

This permits 45MB/sec read speeds with the CF and no seek time required.

The adata 266x turbo CF card performs nicely in Linux.

My oops.  Noted you are laptop and not desktop!

Last edited by lilsirecho (2011-04-27 02:07:24)


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#8 2011-04-27 18:27:02

shwick
Member
Registered: 2010-09-16
Posts: 31

Re: USB Drive question

I think trying it in virtualbox would be more convenient than using a flash drive in your case

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