USB Stick for boot drive

Bryan Kortez · 4 Jun 2015 at 18:26

I've seen some people install basic operating systems e.g. FreeNas on a USB drive instead of using a HDD or SSD. Does anybody know how reliable this is? Are USB sticks likely to burn them selves out quickly from all the read/writes?

Justintime · 5 Jun 2015 at 09:02

Freenas only loads from the stick into memory at startup so the write/read cycles aren't all that, thats why its a waste to use an SSD etc.. to boot it as apart from a slightly faster bootup its pretty much useless after. I have quite a few machines using that method with freenas that have been going for quite some time now with no issues. I'd get a low profile usb memory stick as to avoid damage from moving about or accidently detaching it from the PC in question.

mikedigitales · 5 Jun 2015 at 19:09

As above, usb sticks with FreeNAS last for ages and ages, and you can use ZFS to mirror them (use a dual usb setup in case of failure). Not well suited to Windows etc though.

darknite · 10 Jun 2015 at 12:32

Got one of these coming now
Mushkin Enhanced Ventura MKNUFDVU60GB 60GB
Anyone know if I can fix the usb3 driver issue to get full speed from it?