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| wiki:usb_life [2011/05/27 17:59] – [Persistent Home] Guy | wiki:usb_life [2022/09/21 17:10] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1 | ||
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| + | ====== Maximize the life of a USB Drive or other Solid State Memory ====== | ||
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| + | USB drives, can only be written to a limited number of times, normally thousands, and then they don't work. | ||
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| + | The life of a USB drive, can be maximized, by minimizing the amount of writing to it. | ||
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| + | Reading the drive, does not shorten it's life, only writing to it. | ||
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| + | Some computers contain solid state internal drives, similar to usb drives. The same thing applies to these drives. | ||
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| + | There are a number of things which can be done to maximize the life of these drives. | ||
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| + | ==== Don't put a Swap Partition on it ==== | ||
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| + | Never put a swap partition on a USB drive, as this results in a lot of writing to it, and will greatly shorten its life. | ||
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| + | ==== Use a Non-Journalling Filesystem ==== | ||
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| + | Use a non-journalling filesystem to minimize the amount of writing to the drive. When installing Tinycore, ext2 is ideal. | ||
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| + | ==== Persistent opt ==== | ||
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| + | If persistent opt is used on a USB drive, in most situations this results in less writing to the usb drive. Most people change settings in opt, less often than they backup. | ||
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| + | ==== Persistent home ==== | ||
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| + | Is it a good idea to have persistent home on a USB drive? | ||
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| + | It depends on how you use the USB drive. For example: | ||
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| + | If you run Tinycore from a USB drive, and normally change a lot of files when using it, it may be better to backup the home directory. | ||
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| + | If you use the USB drive as a repair and rescue tool, and don't normally change many files when using it, it may be better to use persistent home. | ||
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| + | Ask the question: Is less written to the USB drive by saving files each time they are changed, or by saving everything in backup each time the computer is turned off? | ||
