11

I've got an Ubuntu installed on an USB-drive for portable use. It's a regular install and not a live USB. Needless to say, it's a Flash-based storage and only 16 GB. What can I do to extend its life?

N.B. Currently my main PC is missing a HDD so the USB-drive is in regular use. I'm afraid that I've already shaved off quite a bit of its life.

N.N.
  • 18,589
Oxwivi
  • 18,499

2 Answers2

6

Since the life of SSD is more affected by writes (than by readers) I would recommend two things:

1) Do not use a swap partition,

2) Edit the fstab to ad noatime for the mounted partitions:
gksu gedit /etc/fstab

It should looks like this:
UUID=something / ext4 errors=remount-ro,noatime 0 1

Also you may like to check this: How do I optimize the OS for SSDs?

Community
  • 1
desgua
  • 33,215
4

ToRam

Probably the easiest way to prolong the USB stick life is to use the "toram" feature of a Live Environment boot.

This will boot the entire live CD/USB into RAM and therefore reduce/eliminate further USB disk accesses.

to-do - press F6 using the boot sequence and add toram to the boot string before the end -- i.e. .... toram --

edit - not at my ubuntu - possibly TORAM=yes - I'll check later.

fossfreedom
  • 174,526