Monday, December 7. 2009
USB Thunbdrive Awesomeness
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Cool 
Tried that a while ago as well but it never worked...need to try again with F12
Tried that a while ago as well but it never worked...need to try again with F12
Cool! I also thought about installing fedora on an USB drive. But, I am not sure how long the drive will last if I use it in this way. Though there should be some kind of wear levelling in every USB Flash drive, I doubt they are ready for this kind of use.
I actually did some research on this in the past:
http://www.bress.net/blog/archives/114-How-Long-Does-a-Flash-Drive-Last.html
The 1 Gig drive I tested held on for 90.5 million writes, so if we extrapolate that out a bit, my 16 Gig drive should last for somehwere around 1.4 Billion writes.
Time for some math that I'll probably get wrong:
Let's presume on an average day, the drive will be written to 1 million times (I suspect it's lower than this presuming you don't have a swap partition and turn off syslog and atime). You're still talking about the drive lasting 1400 days, that's nearly 4 years of life. In 4 years I expect to buy a 100 Gig flash drive for $20, so I can live with that
http://www.bress.net/blog/archives/114-How-Long-Does-a-Flash-Drive-Last.html
The 1 Gig drive I tested held on for 90.5 million writes, so if we extrapolate that out a bit, my 16 Gig drive should last for somehwere around 1.4 Billion writes.
Time for some math that I'll probably get wrong:
Let's presume on an average day, the drive will be written to 1 million times (I suspect it's lower than this presuming you don't have a swap partition and turn off syslog and atime). You're still talking about the drive lasting 1400 days, that's nearly 4 years of life. In 4 years I expect to buy a 100 Gig flash drive for $20, so I can live with that
It seems you did a great investigation on this topic! Now I also have more confidence in these little drives
It is understood why the swap and atime should be turned off, but what about the syslog? Does it also perform frequent write calls?
It is understood why the swap and atime should be turned off, but what about the syslog? Does it also perform frequent write calls?
Keep in mind that varying USB mem-sticks have varying quality. I have found cheap sticks don't last as long as better quality ones. You get what you pay for, here. You can also test each SD card or mem-stick and find out how fast it is able to READ/WRITE to each flash device. This will help you choose a good mem-stick for Linux. I use a couple of Windows programs with GUIs to do this, but I'm sure some terminal command can do something similar in Linux. Different sized files respond differently, though, so test small and larger files, to understand.
I too try to install all Linux distros with a non-LiveCD type of install, a normal one, as if the mem-stick is a hard drive. The problem now is that EXT2 is not the standard, so I need to learn how to use EXT2, not a file system that constantly writes to the stick. If the installer allowed us to choose file systems, I'd be a happy(ier) camper.
GRUB has also been a problem, not just for me, but many people. They over-write their hard drive install (even I've done it a few times). The process needs improvements.
The new Fedora installer is scary, very scary. So scary that I have not bothered doing an install any 12 to a USB mem-stick yet. I just got LXDE, too, so I will probably attempt to install tomorrow, maybe. The new installer which LinuxMint8 (with GRUB2) has is marvelous! It installed to a USB mem-stick properly and wasn't so scary at all. Fedora needs installer improvements for USB installer, like us.
Anyway, I hope I helped a reader.
I too try to install all Linux distros with a non-LiveCD type of install, a normal one, as if the mem-stick is a hard drive. The problem now is that EXT2 is not the standard, so I need to learn how to use EXT2, not a file system that constantly writes to the stick. If the installer allowed us to choose file systems, I'd be a happy(ier) camper.
GRUB has also been a problem, not just for me, but many people. They over-write their hard drive install (even I've done it a few times). The process needs improvements.
The new Fedora installer is scary, very scary. So scary that I have not bothered doing an install any 12 to a USB mem-stick yet. I just got LXDE, too, so I will probably attempt to install tomorrow, maybe. The new installer which LinuxMint8 (with GRUB2) has is marvelous! It installed to a USB mem-stick properly and wasn't so scary at all. Fedora needs installer improvements for USB installer, like us.
Anyway, I hope I helped a reader.
> Keep in mind that varying USB mem-sticks have varying quality. I have found
> cheap sticks don't last as long as better quality ones.
How can you tell this though? The drive has an HP logo on it. It's regular
price (not the price I paid) is $40. That's on par with all other 16 Gig flash
drives. I'm not very worried about that.
> I too try to install all Linux distros with a non-LiveCD type of install, a
> normal one, as if the mem-stick is a hard drive. The problem now is that
> EXT2 is not the standard, so I need to learn how to use EXT2, not a file
> system that constantly writes to the stick. If the installer allowed us to
> choose file systems, I'd be a happy(ier) camper.
The Fedora installer can let you choose a filesystem. You have to choose to
review the partition layout though.
> GRUB has also been a problem, not just for me, but many people. They
> over-write their hard drive install (even I've done it a few times). The
> process needs improvements.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm certainly not seeing this. In the Fedora 12
install, it asks where to install grub. Obviously I choose the USB drive. It
even warns you if you try to install grub to a drive that differs from the
install drive.
> The new Fedora installer is scary, very scary. So scary that I have not
> bothered doing an install any 12 to a USB mem-stick yet.
I'm not sure how to take this. The install certainly isn't scary, it's not
really new either, it's been pretty much the same for about 10 years now, it
works quite well. If there are seriously problems in the installer, I suggest
you let the Anaconda folks know and not troll the blog of a Fedora
contributor.
> Fedora needs installer improvements for USB installer, like us.
They could be slightly better I won't lie, but it was quite painless I
thought.
> cheap sticks don't last as long as better quality ones.
How can you tell this though? The drive has an HP logo on it. It's regular
price (not the price I paid) is $40. That's on par with all other 16 Gig flash
drives. I'm not very worried about that.
> I too try to install all Linux distros with a non-LiveCD type of install, a
> normal one, as if the mem-stick is a hard drive. The problem now is that
> EXT2 is not the standard, so I need to learn how to use EXT2, not a file
> system that constantly writes to the stick. If the installer allowed us to
> choose file systems, I'd be a happy(ier) camper.
The Fedora installer can let you choose a filesystem. You have to choose to
review the partition layout though.
> GRUB has also been a problem, not just for me, but many people. They
> over-write their hard drive install (even I've done it a few times). The
> process needs improvements.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm certainly not seeing this. In the Fedora 12
install, it asks where to install grub. Obviously I choose the USB drive. It
even warns you if you try to install grub to a drive that differs from the
install drive.
> The new Fedora installer is scary, very scary. So scary that I have not
> bothered doing an install any 12 to a USB mem-stick yet.
I'm not sure how to take this. The install certainly isn't scary, it's not
really new either, it's been pretty much the same for about 10 years now, it
works quite well. If there are seriously problems in the installer, I suggest
you let the Anaconda folks know and not troll the blog of a Fedora
contributor.
> Fedora needs installer improvements for USB installer, like us.
They could be slightly better I won't lie, but it was quite painless I
thought.
I have used Fedora and like it; I'm certainly not a troll. These are comments from my perspective and experience. If I had been using Fedora for 10 years, I would probably have a different perspective. At the moment, though, I don't know Fedora's installer all that well compared to a couple of others, so I still have things to learn about it that aren't so obvious. This takes time.
You can find out about some of the USB stick's quality by doing the speed tests I mentioned, but that doesn't tell you about reliability. You only find that out down the road when your install mysteriously fails and there are tools to check for dead blocks, too.
You can find out about some of the USB stick's quality by doing the speed tests I mentioned, but that doesn't tell you about reliability. You only find that out down the road when your install mysteriously fails and there are tools to check for dead blocks, too.
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