Why are USB drives incapable of booting an entire OS long-term?
Through reading several articles and forum submissions, I have come to the (perhaps incorrect) conclusion that one cannot download in entirely the Ubuntu OS onto a flash drive. The answers that I found were those saying that if I could manage to download all of the OS onto a USB flash drive, that I would be unable to keep that USB healthy for very long, perhaps only lasting a few months.
Why are USB flash drives so incompetent compared to, say, an external hard drive in storing and booting data for long periods of time?
boot usb-flash-drive
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
migrated from engineering.stackexchange.com Dec 5 at 23:44
This question came from our site for professionals and students of engineering.
add a comment |
Through reading several articles and forum submissions, I have come to the (perhaps incorrect) conclusion that one cannot download in entirely the Ubuntu OS onto a flash drive. The answers that I found were those saying that if I could manage to download all of the OS onto a USB flash drive, that I would be unable to keep that USB healthy for very long, perhaps only lasting a few months.
Why are USB flash drives so incompetent compared to, say, an external hard drive in storing and booting data for long periods of time?
boot usb-flash-drive
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
migrated from engineering.stackexchange.com Dec 5 at 23:44
This question came from our site for professionals and students of engineering.
@OpticalResonator: I can recall either being told or reading years ago, something along the lines of how USB memory devices had a high resistance component in them to retain their memory states. To store anything on them a high voltage signal had to sent to overcome the high resistance element. Every time this happened it weakened the resistance element which caused such memory devices to have a limited amount of write cycles to them. This may explain why they can't be used as a long term OS boot device.
– Fred
Dec 2 at 14:03
Possible duplicate of If USB sticks and/or external drives have limits, I mean on the number of writes and deletes, how about reads and copys?
– Thomas Dickey
Dec 5 at 23:50
1
I run Ubuntu and other distros on a flash drive all the time. The main issue is that regular flash drives have unreliable service lives, they're basically disposable. You use them until they die. So if you want to use one to operate from, buy a "good quality" (i.e., with a decent warranty), fast drive and have a backup. I wouldn't trust one for anything "mission critical". But my expectation is a few years of service.
– fixer1234
Dec 6 at 2:05
You absolutely can run a full Linux OS on a USB stick. I have been running OpenMediaVault off a 2GB USB drive for over a year now.
– Keltari
Dec 6 at 2:19
add a comment |
Through reading several articles and forum submissions, I have come to the (perhaps incorrect) conclusion that one cannot download in entirely the Ubuntu OS onto a flash drive. The answers that I found were those saying that if I could manage to download all of the OS onto a USB flash drive, that I would be unable to keep that USB healthy for very long, perhaps only lasting a few months.
Why are USB flash drives so incompetent compared to, say, an external hard drive in storing and booting data for long periods of time?
boot usb-flash-drive
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
Through reading several articles and forum submissions, I have come to the (perhaps incorrect) conclusion that one cannot download in entirely the Ubuntu OS onto a flash drive. The answers that I found were those saying that if I could manage to download all of the OS onto a USB flash drive, that I would be unable to keep that USB healthy for very long, perhaps only lasting a few months.
Why are USB flash drives so incompetent compared to, say, an external hard drive in storing and booting data for long periods of time?
boot usb-flash-drive
boot usb-flash-drive
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
edited Dec 6 at 12:22
Glorfindel
1,32241220
1,32241220
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
asked Dec 2 at 1:57
Sermo
1182
1182
migrated from engineering.stackexchange.com Dec 5 at 23:44
This question came from our site for professionals and students of engineering.
migrated from engineering.stackexchange.com Dec 5 at 23:44
This question came from our site for professionals and students of engineering.
@OpticalResonator: I can recall either being told or reading years ago, something along the lines of how USB memory devices had a high resistance component in them to retain their memory states. To store anything on them a high voltage signal had to sent to overcome the high resistance element. Every time this happened it weakened the resistance element which caused such memory devices to have a limited amount of write cycles to them. This may explain why they can't be used as a long term OS boot device.
– Fred
Dec 2 at 14:03
Possible duplicate of If USB sticks and/or external drives have limits, I mean on the number of writes and deletes, how about reads and copys?
– Thomas Dickey
Dec 5 at 23:50
1
I run Ubuntu and other distros on a flash drive all the time. The main issue is that regular flash drives have unreliable service lives, they're basically disposable. You use them until they die. So if you want to use one to operate from, buy a "good quality" (i.e., with a decent warranty), fast drive and have a backup. I wouldn't trust one for anything "mission critical". But my expectation is a few years of service.
– fixer1234
Dec 6 at 2:05
You absolutely can run a full Linux OS on a USB stick. I have been running OpenMediaVault off a 2GB USB drive for over a year now.
– Keltari
Dec 6 at 2:19
add a comment |
@OpticalResonator: I can recall either being told or reading years ago, something along the lines of how USB memory devices had a high resistance component in them to retain their memory states. To store anything on them a high voltage signal had to sent to overcome the high resistance element. Every time this happened it weakened the resistance element which caused such memory devices to have a limited amount of write cycles to them. This may explain why they can't be used as a long term OS boot device.
– Fred
Dec 2 at 14:03
Possible duplicate of If USB sticks and/or external drives have limits, I mean on the number of writes and deletes, how about reads and copys?
– Thomas Dickey
Dec 5 at 23:50
1
I run Ubuntu and other distros on a flash drive all the time. The main issue is that regular flash drives have unreliable service lives, they're basically disposable. You use them until they die. So if you want to use one to operate from, buy a "good quality" (i.e., with a decent warranty), fast drive and have a backup. I wouldn't trust one for anything "mission critical". But my expectation is a few years of service.
– fixer1234
Dec 6 at 2:05
You absolutely can run a full Linux OS on a USB stick. I have been running OpenMediaVault off a 2GB USB drive for over a year now.
– Keltari
Dec 6 at 2:19
@OpticalResonator: I can recall either being told or reading years ago, something along the lines of how USB memory devices had a high resistance component in them to retain their memory states. To store anything on them a high voltage signal had to sent to overcome the high resistance element. Every time this happened it weakened the resistance element which caused such memory devices to have a limited amount of write cycles to them. This may explain why they can't be used as a long term OS boot device.
– Fred
Dec 2 at 14:03
@OpticalResonator: I can recall either being told or reading years ago, something along the lines of how USB memory devices had a high resistance component in them to retain their memory states. To store anything on them a high voltage signal had to sent to overcome the high resistance element. Every time this happened it weakened the resistance element which caused such memory devices to have a limited amount of write cycles to them. This may explain why they can't be used as a long term OS boot device.
– Fred
Dec 2 at 14:03
Possible duplicate of If USB sticks and/or external drives have limits, I mean on the number of writes and deletes, how about reads and copys?
– Thomas Dickey
Dec 5 at 23:50
Possible duplicate of If USB sticks and/or external drives have limits, I mean on the number of writes and deletes, how about reads and copys?
– Thomas Dickey
Dec 5 at 23:50
1
1
I run Ubuntu and other distros on a flash drive all the time. The main issue is that regular flash drives have unreliable service lives, they're basically disposable. You use them until they die. So if you want to use one to operate from, buy a "good quality" (i.e., with a decent warranty), fast drive and have a backup. I wouldn't trust one for anything "mission critical". But my expectation is a few years of service.
– fixer1234
Dec 6 at 2:05
I run Ubuntu and other distros on a flash drive all the time. The main issue is that regular flash drives have unreliable service lives, they're basically disposable. You use them until they die. So if you want to use one to operate from, buy a "good quality" (i.e., with a decent warranty), fast drive and have a backup. I wouldn't trust one for anything "mission critical". But my expectation is a few years of service.
– fixer1234
Dec 6 at 2:05
You absolutely can run a full Linux OS on a USB stick. I have been running OpenMediaVault off a 2GB USB drive for over a year now.
– Keltari
Dec 6 at 2:19
You absolutely can run a full Linux OS on a USB stick. I have been running OpenMediaVault off a 2GB USB drive for over a year now.
– Keltari
Dec 6 at 2:19
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
USB Flash drives undergo frequent use and abuse, whereas SSDs and HDDs are not subject to the abuse which flash drives suffer. Even if the USB was plugged in, once, and left in place, the circuitry design is not as robust as an SSD.
In addition, a LiveUSB (i.e., bootable) must be prepared in a special way to retain data and new apps, and that 'persistence' is limited to 4MB, which is hardly suitable for practical use.
Incidentally, they are also significantly slower than an SSD, for the USB interface is nowhere near the 6GT/sec of a SATA 3 drive, as you can see in this review.
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
add a comment |
Yes and no. If you plan to use a standard OS meant for common desktop, you're going to kill the flash, wearing off its write cycles soon - the OS performs a plenty of writing: logs, temporary files etc. and they all take toll on the flash.
There are solutions for embedded systems though, that involve using UnionFS - a special meta-filesystem that overlays two different filesystems as if they were one. In this case, the flash is overlaid with a ramdisk. The flash is mounted read-only, and all common writes are performed to a virtual disk in RAM (copying relevant file from flash first, if needed), which lasts as long as the power is on; any corruption or errors can be cleaned up by cycling the power. If persistent changes need to be introduced (usually by authorized service), the flash is remounted read-write, and the changes are made to the files on the mount path of that flash medium, not the root directory tree, which is still UnionFS.
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
1
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "3"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fsuperuser.com%2fquestions%2f1381179%2fwhy-are-usb-drives-incapable-of-booting-an-entire-os-long-term%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
USB Flash drives undergo frequent use and abuse, whereas SSDs and HDDs are not subject to the abuse which flash drives suffer. Even if the USB was plugged in, once, and left in place, the circuitry design is not as robust as an SSD.
In addition, a LiveUSB (i.e., bootable) must be prepared in a special way to retain data and new apps, and that 'persistence' is limited to 4MB, which is hardly suitable for practical use.
Incidentally, they are also significantly slower than an SSD, for the USB interface is nowhere near the 6GT/sec of a SATA 3 drive, as you can see in this review.
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
add a comment |
USB Flash drives undergo frequent use and abuse, whereas SSDs and HDDs are not subject to the abuse which flash drives suffer. Even if the USB was plugged in, once, and left in place, the circuitry design is not as robust as an SSD.
In addition, a LiveUSB (i.e., bootable) must be prepared in a special way to retain data and new apps, and that 'persistence' is limited to 4MB, which is hardly suitable for practical use.
Incidentally, they are also significantly slower than an SSD, for the USB interface is nowhere near the 6GT/sec of a SATA 3 drive, as you can see in this review.
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
add a comment |
USB Flash drives undergo frequent use and abuse, whereas SSDs and HDDs are not subject to the abuse which flash drives suffer. Even if the USB was plugged in, once, and left in place, the circuitry design is not as robust as an SSD.
In addition, a LiveUSB (i.e., bootable) must be prepared in a special way to retain data and new apps, and that 'persistence' is limited to 4MB, which is hardly suitable for practical use.
Incidentally, they are also significantly slower than an SSD, for the USB interface is nowhere near the 6GT/sec of a SATA 3 drive, as you can see in this review.
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
USB Flash drives undergo frequent use and abuse, whereas SSDs and HDDs are not subject to the abuse which flash drives suffer. Even if the USB was plugged in, once, and left in place, the circuitry design is not as robust as an SSD.
In addition, a LiveUSB (i.e., bootable) must be prepared in a special way to retain data and new apps, and that 'persistence' is limited to 4MB, which is hardly suitable for practical use.
Incidentally, they are also significantly slower than an SSD, for the USB interface is nowhere near the 6GT/sec of a SATA 3 drive, as you can see in this review.
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
answered Dec 5 at 23:52
K7AAY
3,38321437
3,38321437
add a comment |
add a comment |
Yes and no. If you plan to use a standard OS meant for common desktop, you're going to kill the flash, wearing off its write cycles soon - the OS performs a plenty of writing: logs, temporary files etc. and they all take toll on the flash.
There are solutions for embedded systems though, that involve using UnionFS - a special meta-filesystem that overlays two different filesystems as if they were one. In this case, the flash is overlaid with a ramdisk. The flash is mounted read-only, and all common writes are performed to a virtual disk in RAM (copying relevant file from flash first, if needed), which lasts as long as the power is on; any corruption or errors can be cleaned up by cycling the power. If persistent changes need to be introduced (usually by authorized service), the flash is remounted read-write, and the changes are made to the files on the mount path of that flash medium, not the root directory tree, which is still UnionFS.
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
1
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
add a comment |
Yes and no. If you plan to use a standard OS meant for common desktop, you're going to kill the flash, wearing off its write cycles soon - the OS performs a plenty of writing: logs, temporary files etc. and they all take toll on the flash.
There are solutions for embedded systems though, that involve using UnionFS - a special meta-filesystem that overlays two different filesystems as if they were one. In this case, the flash is overlaid with a ramdisk. The flash is mounted read-only, and all common writes are performed to a virtual disk in RAM (copying relevant file from flash first, if needed), which lasts as long as the power is on; any corruption or errors can be cleaned up by cycling the power. If persistent changes need to be introduced (usually by authorized service), the flash is remounted read-write, and the changes are made to the files on the mount path of that flash medium, not the root directory tree, which is still UnionFS.
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
1
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
add a comment |
Yes and no. If you plan to use a standard OS meant for common desktop, you're going to kill the flash, wearing off its write cycles soon - the OS performs a plenty of writing: logs, temporary files etc. and they all take toll on the flash.
There are solutions for embedded systems though, that involve using UnionFS - a special meta-filesystem that overlays two different filesystems as if they were one. In this case, the flash is overlaid with a ramdisk. The flash is mounted read-only, and all common writes are performed to a virtual disk in RAM (copying relevant file from flash first, if needed), which lasts as long as the power is on; any corruption or errors can be cleaned up by cycling the power. If persistent changes need to be introduced (usually by authorized service), the flash is remounted read-write, and the changes are made to the files on the mount path of that flash medium, not the root directory tree, which is still UnionFS.
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
Yes and no. If you plan to use a standard OS meant for common desktop, you're going to kill the flash, wearing off its write cycles soon - the OS performs a plenty of writing: logs, temporary files etc. and they all take toll on the flash.
There are solutions for embedded systems though, that involve using UnionFS - a special meta-filesystem that overlays two different filesystems as if they were one. In this case, the flash is overlaid with a ramdisk. The flash is mounted read-only, and all common writes are performed to a virtual disk in RAM (copying relevant file from flash first, if needed), which lasts as long as the power is on; any corruption or errors can be cleaned up by cycling the power. If persistent changes need to be introduced (usually by authorized service), the flash is remounted read-write, and the changes are made to the files on the mount path of that flash medium, not the root directory tree, which is still UnionFS.
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
answered Dec 6 at 12:18
SF.
13517
13517
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
1
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
add a comment |
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
1
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
Anything you can link to (or can you elaborate) on setting up UnionFS with a ramdisk? Would that work only with embedded systems, or could you implement that on a flash drive with a "portable" OS?
– fixer1234
Dec 7 at 0:35
1
1
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
@fixer1234: It would work with a "portable" OS, but it's cumbersome for saving anything. An example of such configuration: blog.pi3g.com/2014/04/make-raspbian-system-read-only
– SF.
Dec 7 at 9:05
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Super User!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.
Please pay close attention to the following guidance:
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fsuperuser.com%2fquestions%2f1381179%2fwhy-are-usb-drives-incapable-of-booting-an-entire-os-long-term%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
@OpticalResonator: I can recall either being told or reading years ago, something along the lines of how USB memory devices had a high resistance component in them to retain their memory states. To store anything on them a high voltage signal had to sent to overcome the high resistance element. Every time this happened it weakened the resistance element which caused such memory devices to have a limited amount of write cycles to them. This may explain why they can't be used as a long term OS boot device.
– Fred
Dec 2 at 14:03
Possible duplicate of If USB sticks and/or external drives have limits, I mean on the number of writes and deletes, how about reads and copys?
– Thomas Dickey
Dec 5 at 23:50
1
I run Ubuntu and other distros on a flash drive all the time. The main issue is that regular flash drives have unreliable service lives, they're basically disposable. You use them until they die. So if you want to use one to operate from, buy a "good quality" (i.e., with a decent warranty), fast drive and have a backup. I wouldn't trust one for anything "mission critical". But my expectation is a few years of service.
– fixer1234
Dec 6 at 2:05
You absolutely can run a full Linux OS on a USB stick. I have been running OpenMediaVault off a 2GB USB drive for over a year now.
– Keltari
Dec 6 at 2:19