Move windows to USB 3.0 SSD

[Stringy]

Just bought a Lenovo Flex 3 (Pentium N5030, 4GB RAM, 64GB emmc, touch 11.6" IPS lcd) at a bargain price and it came with windows 10. While it runs ok, the device itself would be far more reasonable as a chromebook-esque device. Anyone know how practical it would be to move the windows install to an external USB 3 SSD where it would be bootable for 'serious' work at a desk, and I could install CloudReady or a light Linux distro on the emmc for speedier on-the-go usage? Would the windows install run reasonably well from an external SSD? How would I go about moving the install to the SSD, and if I did, how easy would it be to return it to the emmc in future if I wanted to?

Is this a waste of time?

 

[sja360]

You can initially run say atto hdd benchmark to see the current speed of the MMC drive. I'd say it's worth doing but it does mean you'll need that usb drive hanging off it at all times.

As for how to do it, just get a copy of your windows version get Rufus to setup the SD card or usb memory stick for running the install, once it's made plug in the usb 3.0 hdd and make sure you install nicer that.

There isn't any built in ports that would provide M2 or anything ?

 

[Stringy]

You can initially run say atto hdd benchmark to see the current speed of the MMC drive. I'd say it's worth doing but it does mean you'll need that usb drive hanging off it at all times.

As for how to do it, just get a copy of your windows version get Rufus to setup the SD card or usb memory stick for running the install, once it's made plug in the usb 3.0 hdd and make sure you install nicer that.

There isn't any built in ports that would provide M2 or anything ?

It's a cheap 2-in-1 (got it for £230) so there doesn't seem to be any user upgradeable options with it. Lenovo website claims there'll be SSD options later on so maybe there's a M2 port lurking in the chassis but I'll save digging into the chassis for a later warranty-expired date.
Turns out the eMMC is half a decent modern SanDisk affair with fairly decent performance (significantly better than mechanical, worse than SSD) so what I've done instead is buy a SanDisk Extreme MicroSD for general storage, and I'll only install frequently used programmes on the eMMC.