SSD vs USB flash drive for Linux OS

[JJ Johnson]

I've never run Linux from any sort of solid state storage. I want to set up a small, low power Atom based server with a single 2.5" data drive. It will run Ubuntu Server with no GUI, so the storage requirements are minimal. Applications running on the server will a web server, email server, MySQL.

I was thinking that it would be ideal to boot from either SSD or a USB flash drive, but don't really know the pros and cons of either. USB flash is certainly cheaper, and I doubt that I'd need even 4GB for such a system. What would be the tradeoffs and what would be the differences in how the systems would be setup using SSD vs. USB flash?

 

[MrGuvernment]

speed.

SSD would be blazing fast while a USB drive your going to be limited to sub 35MB/s speeds for performance, but you may not need much speed in the end but how much serving will this website be doing cause a USB drive may choke a bit if your getting alot of hits.