Booting an OS from a 1Gb usb memory stick

L

Linuxtim

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Messages
203
Hi [H]

I been thinking about running a system without an ide/sata hdd in for some. I have just bought a 1 Gb USB2 memory stick with ths in mind (actually bought two to mirror data incase one fails).

Can anyone sugest an OS that will give me a GUI, brower (Firefox), a media player (mplayer or MPC), usb/firewire/ide dvd support and a wireless nic? I may, in the futre, want to add some sort of PVR function (I'll have external/network drives for storage) but that's not a big concern now.

My guess is Windows 98 wont install on this (XP wont either). So it would probably be a GNU/Linux distro. I've used Mandrake a bit and liked it (the 64 bit beta).

So - what do you guys think?

Thanks in advance

L

p.s. I'm aware my handle is linuxtim an I don't know much about linux. Feel free to make with the funny, just not too much :)
 
Just a question: Why do you want to not run a system with out any internal HD's? Running something off a usb stick, closest thing i could think of would be dam small linux but thats meant to just fit on a flash stick not run off of it.
 
I didnt think you could boot off a usb but looking around on google ive found an os called puppy linux. Im trying it right now off one of my usb devices ill let you know how it goes.

Seems knoppix supports usb booting as well, but im not so sure if this means it boots without use of the cd, maybe puppy is the same...

I have nothing better to do =)
This looks like a better distro though, as puppy looks like it will boot usb, to use the cdrom.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Oh if you just want a non hd linux knoppix is the one, runs off a bootable cd and has all the bells and whistles.
 
Basically just to see if it can be done. I've not had a hdd fail but i've seen a lot that have. If I can move from a mechanical storage to a solid state storage I'll feel better. Also, MS product activation has me wanting to move totally away from MS software. Just seemed like a way to combine these things.

Downloading Puppy 1.0 alpha now. Just wish the USB2 stick was here so I could test it.

L


edit for spelling
 
Linuxtim said:
Basically just to see if it can be done. I've not had a hdd fail but i've seen a lot that have. If I can move from a mechanical storage to a solid state storage I'll feel better.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that a block on a flash storage device WILL fail after a certain number of write operations. It's a limitation of the memory type that they "burn out" and become error prone after a certain amount of usage. So if you plan on using the flash storage simply because it's not possible to have a disk crash, you my want to think twice. The flash device will become unusable after a certain length of time if an OS is using it for any type of swap file.

Internally, flash devices will remap blocks so that write operations are spread across available memory rather than writing the same area continuously (in the case of file contents changing). Because of this, the life of a flash device is quite long under normal usage, however if you are constantly reading\writing to the device, and it has a fair percentage of space that is permanently used for the OS, a good hard disk will likely last longer. In flash devices, usually a block is disabled after so many write operations to help prevent data loss\corruption due to the block burning out, so after a while you will see the actual size of the flash device get smaller and smaller, as blocks are permanently marked off as unusable within the device.


Also not that most flash devices are quite slow when compared to hard disks. An average flash device can sustain 4-8 MB/s reads, though high speed flash devices can get up to 25MB/s.
 
[MS] said:
Keep in mind that a block on a flash storage device WILL fail after a certain number of write operations. It's a limitation of the memory type that they "burn out" and become error prone after a certain amount of usage.
Click to expand...

That I did not know. So it would seem better to have one as a backup OS than a live OS.?


[MS] said:
Also not[e] that most flash devices are quite slow when compared to hard disks. An average flash device can sustain 4-8 MB/s reads, though high speed flash devices can get up to 25MB/s.
Click to expand...
Yeah - it's a USB2. I may measure it to see.

Cheers so far guys.

L
 
Linuxtim said:
That I did not know. So it would seem better to have one as a backup OS than a live OS.?
Click to expand...
Yeah. For low-profile stuff, though, I'd check out MicroDrives. They use the CFII form-factor but are actually magnetic drives.

Yeah - it's a USB2. I may measure it to see.
Click to expand...
That may help some, but a lot of the limitation is just Flash circuitry. For low-load SFF stuff, though, it may not matter.
 
lomn75 said:
Yeah. For low-profile stuff, though, I'd check out MicroDrives. They use the CFII form-factor but are actually magnetic drives.

That may help some, but a lot of the limitation is just Flash circuitry. For low-load SFF stuff, though, it may not matter.
Click to expand...

I would not recommend a microdrive for and OS install. I have one I use in a camera and they are only about as fast as a slow flash card (3-4MB/s read, 1-2MB/s write), at least in my experience.

The best advice I could give for data redundancy is to use have periodic backups, or use a technology that is designed for that (like mirrors, or some disk fault tolerant RAID). If you really want to use flash for the OS, the best advice is to have any swap file on a different drive. I'd still advise against it, but you'll get much longer life from the flash drive if you limit write operations to a minimum.


As for the speed of drives, the speed of the flash is the limiting factor, not the USB2 interface. USB2 may be able to support high speeds, but even the fastest flash devices are limited to about 20MB/s. Some may be as slow as 4MB/s.
 
To be redundant, [MS] had it correct that a USB flash stick has a limited number of reads/writes before a block fails. You can repair the stick (by removing the block from use), but that's only a stop-gap after already losing data.

If you ask me, for what you're considering, I would suggest a removable hard drive rack (fits into 5.25" drive bay) and having a contingency OS on it in case of machine failure. I'm already implementing it for data backup and mobility.
 
Someone should still try running an OS off a USB stick, that would be pretty cool if it could be done. I know it would start to get unreliable, butIf it can actually be done, it would be pretty neat, IMO. :)
 
GreNME said:
To be redundant, [MS] had it correct that a USB flash stick has a limited number of reads/writes before a block fails. You can repair the stick (by removing the block from use), but that's only a stop-gap after already losing data.

If you ask me, for what you're considering, I would suggest a removable hard drive rack (fits into 5.25" drive bay) and having a contingency OS on it in case of machine failure. I'm already implementing it for data backup and mobility.
Click to expand...

Agreed. However, I really am interested in the topic of having a usable OS on a flash drive since I often end up troubleshooting relative's PCs when I'm home on leave. It's be nice to have an OS ready to go on my keychain than have to carry around a CD-Rom or spare hard disk.
 
BobSutan said:
Agreed. However, I really am interested in the topic of having a usable OS on a flash drive since I often end up troubleshooting relative's PCs when I'm home on leave. It's be nice to have an OS ready to go on my keychain than have to carry around a CD-Rom or spare hard disk.
Click to expand...
Hell yes. And there are a couple out there capable of doing so with minimal degradation to a flash drive (loads the whole OS into memory). We have the software capable of doing it, but non-volatile memory chips aren't quite up to snuff yet. Still, if you have a stick you can afford to spare, they're good enough for at least a short-lived (relatively speaking) troubleshooting OS on a keychain.
 
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