Who runs MX from USB and why?

[NGIB]

Just a question I've had for a while now. The only time I ever run the system from a USB drive is to install from a snapshot as the slowness would drive me nuts. The last SSD I bought was a 225GB from Walmart for $29, which is as cheap as a good USB 3.0 thumb drive. While I have never run MX from a USB 3.0 drive, I can't imagine it would be anywhere near as fast as running on even a cheap SSD.

So who does run from a thumb drive and why?

[Fast-Game]

I run MX from usb 3.0 with toram, persistent root, can't imagine SSD being faster than my CPU/ram.

[dolphin_oracle]

I run antiX on a live-USB (3.0), which is in fact faster than some cheap eMMC devices (like my two netbooks).

[Fast-Game]

Will add that live usb is slow on boot and shutdown. I can pull that usb and works a treat in any PC I plug it into, can't say the same for my Arch SSD install.

[NGIB]

I may be thick but I have yet to hear why as I really don't see a USB system will be faster/better than an installed system. About the only use I can see is as a portable system I can use on computers that I don't own. Never use any computers except my own so I have never seen the need for a portable system. I do keep a current snapshot to do installs when necessary though...

[dolphin_oracle]

I may be thick but I have yet to hear why as I really don't see a USB system will be faster/better than an installed system. About the only use I can see is as a portable system I can use on computers that I don't own. Never use any computers except my own so I have never seen the need for a portable system. I do keep a current snapshot to do installs when necessary though...

the usb system *can* be totally loaded into ram, which is faster than an installed system. only bootup and shutdown (while the persistence files are sync'd) takes longer.

but the other reason you specify is another good reason for live-usbs, and that is how I use the MX live usb, as a evolving install media.

[malspa]

I may be thick but I have yet to hear why as I really don't see a USB system will be faster/better than an installed system. About the only use I can see is as a portable system I can use on computers that I don't own. Never use any computers except my own so I have never seen the need for a portable system. I do keep a current snapshot to do installs when necessary though...

Maybe it's simply that it's handy and some people find it convenient.

In my case, MX isn't one of the distros that I use each day, but I do like to run MX live from a flash drive sometimes, maybe just to test something out or maybe just messing around and playing some music or whatever. Whether it's faster or better than the installed system, that part doesn't really matter to me. Sometimes it's just the fact that somebody posted something at the forums and I booted up an MX live session just so I could see what they were talking about.

And as I've mentioned elsewhere, whenever a new (to me) computer happens to come my way, first thing I try to do is boot it with the MX flash drive, then have a look around.

[KBD]

I like having a full-fledged MX install on a 3.0 Sandisk Ultra 120gb USB. It is as fast as a SSD drive, and I don't notice any difference. Nice to have a portable MX install.
Note that not all USB sticks are created equal, I burned up one stick with a full install, and some cheaper USB sticks have not stood the test of time, either slowing down or freezing up.

[JayM]

Portability and flexibility.

You can bring your home computer's OS with you when traveling without having to bring an entire personal laptop and have it risk being damaged, lost or stolen (as long as there's a computer that you can use at your destination), and run personal software without installing it on your company laptop while on business trips.

You can have your own personal MX and run it on a computer where for some reason you're unable to install it permanently (a shared computer for example) or simply don't wish to install it and hassle with resizing Windows' partition, setting up dual-booting, and risking data loss or problems booting.

You can have multiple USB sticks containing multiple versions of MX that you can boot from, to beta test newer versions or assist in supporting older versions, without having to set up a complicated multi-boot, multi-partition configuration. This also saves valuable disk space as you don't have to dedicate 10 or 20GB to an MX-16 partition that you only boot into once a year.

You can use a live USB to create respins.

With a little imagination you must be able to think of other scenarios where a full-featured live OS on a USB stick is useful besides as an installation medium.

[NGIB]

I guess I'm just dull as I don't need a portable system since the only computers I use are my own and have installed systems. I swap out hard drives when I'm testing stuff as it only takes a minute and I have lots of spare drives. One thing I check before I buy any laptop (haven't owned a desktop in 20 years) is how easy hard drove changes are. I was just genuinely interested in why people use USB as I've never seen the need except as an install medium,,,