unless you have a stockpile of 1gb drives it's not going to be worth the effort.
however you could do 2gb easily enough with linux coin
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=7374.0
and a 512mb persistance however i'm not sure how much of an effect the size of the persistance file has on the performance of the miner it's my understanding this is just storage of configuration and such and in that case 512mb would be more than enough for miner configuration information.
Topic: flash drive for OS (Read 2367 times)
nope, not gonna put windows on it since i would need a huge flash drive for that. if i'm gonna go the flash drive route, i'll be putting linux on it. but my main question was if it's possible to get a linux mining machine in a 1gb flash drive footprint.
It is probably possible with some very small stripped out distro, but why would you want to do that?
Just get a 8GB drive and put Ubuntu on it.
nope, not gonna put windows on it since i would need a huge flash drive for that. if i'm gonna go the flash drive route, i'll be putting linux on it. but my main question was if it's possible to get a linux mining machine in a 1gb flash drive footprint.
OCZ and Patriot are a safe bet also 
And don't buy just the cheapest from each brand - get one from the middle of their product line.
And I still wouldn't recommend putting Windows on a USB flash drive - I even thought it's not possible.
And don't buy just the cheapest from each brand - get one from the middle of their product line.
And I still wouldn't recommend putting Windows on a USB flash drive - I even thought it's not possible.
corsair voyager huh? ok thanks, i'll probably look for one or two of these to pick up. are there any other ones i should consider besides the voyager series?
I have 3x Kingston 4gb drives that came as "FREE" from newegg purchases before, and they are nothing but trouble.
Same here. Bough Kingston 8GB DataTraveler G3 and got boot and file system problems all the time.
So I just bought a Seagate Baracuda 80GB HHD from ebay for £11 and will reinstall soon.
there are just so many flash drives. how is "quality" measured, and how can i tell which one is a "quality" one for a main OS usage? flash drives are not reviewed as much as SSD, so i almost know nothing about flash drive specs.
I would recommend to get this one - http://www.corsair.com/usb-drives/flash-voyager/flash-voyager-gt.html
And if using Linux use ext2 as ext4 uses journal which just kills the drive (too many reads/writes which can also happen in Windows)
That's because of the page file. W7 won't do that if it's turned off. But you'll want more memory at that point nullifying the savings of using the flash drive.
win7 on a flash drive is a very bad idea
it pretty much trashes the system drive constantly
even when idle there are constant writes
it pretty much trashes the system drive constantly
even when idle there are constant writes
For a while the 'good ones' were the ones compatible with Windows 7 Ready Boost but I have to admit I haven't seen one labeled as such in a long time.
Also, the datasheet should at least show read and write speed for comparison.
the best way to get a "quality" flash drive would be to pick one from a manufacturer with a good reputation (patriot lexar adata) that has some decent reviews on newegg. keep in mind as with any product if you get enough reviews you'll see ones that read "didn't work piece of junk" even the best manufacturers make a bad chip from time to time.
*edit*
I own the 8gb model of this drive and used it until I moved to usb3 for the drive in my pocket everyday. I have used it to run ubuntu and although more than some of the other 4gb drives it is very good. http://www.Newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-220-251
*edit*
I own the 8gb model of this drive and used it until I moved to usb3 for the drive in my pocket everyday. I have used it to run ubuntu and although more than some of the other 4gb drives it is very good. http://www.Newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-220-251
make sure you get a QUALITY flash drive.
I have 3x Kingston 4gb drives that came as "FREE" from newegg purchases before, and they are nothing but trouble.
Ubuntu would crash, fail to start, says the drive is corrupt, and other stuff.
While my other machines with Patriot and Corsair flash have been running almost flawlessly!
Again, QUALITY flash drive is key.
In the mean time, I am switching the POS kingston drives with real HDDs.
I have 3x Kingston 4gb drives that came as "FREE" from newegg purchases before, and they are nothing but trouble.
Ubuntu would crash, fail to start, says the drive is corrupt, and other stuff.
While my other machines with Patriot and Corsair flash have been running almost flawlessly!
Again, QUALITY flash drive is key.
In the mean time, I am switching the POS kingston drives with real HDDs.
there are just so many flash drives. how is "quality" measured, and how can i tell which one is a "quality" one for a main OS usage? flash drives are not reviewed as much as SSD, so i almost know nothing about flash drive specs.
8 GB min 16 GB recommended for Windows there is a tut on into windows (i think) on how to do it. You can also use True Image to make copies. I will get to tryin' this out one of these days.
has anyone tried to shave off some mining hardware costs and bought flash drives for the OS instead of using regular mechanical hard drives? i know this is possible and it's more ideal for linux. i'm going to need at least a 16gb flash drive for win7 right? is it possible to have all mining settings set up using a 1gb flash drive on linux? i know nothing about linux, but if this is possible, i'm wiling to learn it if the OS can fit in this small footprint. any comments on this would be great, thanks!
You will need at least a 16GB UFD.My tests on a VM with a 2oGB HDD show that there's 9GB free space when installing from fresh so that's about 11GB used (or was that 12GB free and 7GB used)
To be on the safe side I'd recommend at least a 16GB UFD,32GB UFD are cheap enough to get now (average ones in the Uk are like under £30 now)
booting from a UFD won't be as fast as an SSD (as those are ridiculously expensive,esp an SLC based one,I don't consider an MLC an option as they are too unreliable and have poor service life for my needs due to limited writes,Thankfully my budget can allow for a 64GB SLC type SSD but no more)
I'd also love to try this out myself by running Win 7 from a UFD or High speed SD card.
As for Linux,you can use this to fit it on to your UFD (USB Flash drive):http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download (read the create a USB drive section for walkthrough)
Download this tool:http://www.pendrivelinux.com/downloads/Universal-USB-Installer/Universal-USB-Installer.exe
I hope this helps. It's best that you have at least a 2GB UFD at the very least (as most distros use nearly 2GB when fully installed onto the USB sticks anyway with little room for user data or mining apps.Do yourself a favour and get yourself a bigger UFD)
make sure you get a QUALITY flash drive.
I have 3x Kingston 4gb drives that came as "FREE" from newegg purchases before, and they are nothing but trouble.
Ubuntu would crash, fail to start, says the drive is corrupt, and other stuff.
While my other machines with Patriot and Corsair flash have been running almost flawlessly!
Again, QUALITY flash drive is key.
In the mean time, I am switching the POS kingston drives with real HDDs.
I have 3x Kingston 4gb drives that came as "FREE" from newegg purchases before, and they are nothing but trouble.
Ubuntu would crash, fail to start, says the drive is corrupt, and other stuff.
While my other machines with Patriot and Corsair flash have been running almost flawlessly!
Again, QUALITY flash drive is key.
In the mean time, I am switching the POS kingston drives with real HDDs.
even if you could do it in less than 4gb the effort wouldn't be worth the return.
if you can get a 4gb drive for 8 dollars i have to ask how much the extra time you'll spend mashing everything into a 1gb drive is worth?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220099
when the cheapest 1gb drives will cost you more because they have a shipping cost
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820244074
and a two gig drive will only save you two dollars
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226213
plus patriot is a good brand for memory products so it's not a bad drive for the 8 dollars either.
if you can get a 4gb drive for 8 dollars i have to ask how much the extra time you'll spend mashing everything into a 1gb drive is worth?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220099
when the cheapest 1gb drives will cost you more because they have a shipping cost
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820244074
and a two gig drive will only save you two dollars
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226213
plus patriot is a good brand for memory products so it's not a bad drive for the 8 dollars either.
I am pretty sure there is a Debian based mining distro out there that is less than 2 GB.
Watch which USB drive you get though. I got a really small one and it was so damn slow I could hardly run linux on it.
Watch which USB drive you get though. I got a really small one and it was so damn slow I could hardly run linux on it.
thanks, good to know. how come i've seen crunching setups that are about 1gb size? so it's not possible to get a miner started with anything less than a 4gb flash drive?
Sure, if you want to put the kernel, a few command utils, the needed libs, and the miner software you could get everything in under 1GB, but....
That basically requires rolling your distro, and normally it's just not worth it. It's a lot easier/quicker/cheaper to just get a bigger flash drive.
thanks, good to know. how come i've seen crunching setups that are about 1gb size? so it's not possible to get a miner started with anything less than a 4gb flash drive?
I have ubuntu server running on 4 GB flash drives for at least a dozen of my rigs. With phoenix and all the prereq's installed they have about 500 MB free. Ubuntu Desktop didn't fit on a 4 GB drive. I had to install X11 and Slim for the window manager myself. One bonus of going with USB sticks is you can get one setup the way you want, then clone it with dd or winimage. Installing ubuntu and all the software onto each stick was taking a couple hours, whereas the clone takes 15 mins.
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