Pros and cons of booting in a USB drive?

1st Official Post

    Title.

    At the moment I have OMV installed in a VM. I want to move it to a separate machine and have my second machine be dedicated as a hypervisor. I'm torn between using a SATA port to boot from a an SSD, or boot from a microSD card to USB install instead. If I go SATA SSD I lose a SATA port (my motherboard only has 6) but I feel like it's more reliable. If I go microSD+USB then I keep all 6 SATA ports but I feel like it's less reliable. Maybe speed could be an issue too if I use USB, I am using DDR3 memory.


    Why am I using microSD+USB, it's because I already have it. I ditched unRAID. But I can easily buy a 32GB USB drive if that's preferable.

  • macom

    Approved the thread.
    • Official Post

    I use a USB thumb drive. Reasons:

    • you don't need a sata port
    • easy to backup (e.g. clone with Clonezilla on another thumb drive, then you are up and running by just switching the thumb drives)
    • small backup size if you use the fulldd method with the backup plugin
    • speed does not matter except during boot up and upgrades
    • the USB thumb drive has a good life time if you use the flashmemory or writecache plugin
    Quote from macom

    I use a USB thumb drive. Reasons:

    • you don't need a sata port
    • easy to backup (e.g. clone with Clonezilla on another thumb drive, then you are up and running by just switching the thumb drives)
    • small backup size if you use the fulldd method with the backup plugin
    • speed does not matter except during boot up and upgrades
    • the USB thumb drive has a good life time if you use the flashmemory or writecache plugin

    Having an easy backup for the boot drive does sound nice. How does it handle plugins and their settings? Do they also copy over?

    I run OMV from a 32GB 2.5in SSD drive housed in an external USB enclosure. Both pieces are about $20 total on eBay.


    I used to run on a 32GB USB thumb drive, but problems arose with the Flashmemory plugin such that I could no longer use it.


    I would never consider using SD cards.

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    A backup strategy is worthless unless you have a verified to work by testing restore strategy.


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U Intel Xeon CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

    OMV AMD64 8.x on headless Tyan Thunder SX GT86C-B5630 1U Server with Intel Xeon Silver 4110 CPU @ 2.10GHz & 32GB DDR4 ECC RAM.

    • Official Post

    I've been using thumbdrives, almost exclusively, for the ease of backup. With the flashmemory plugin, they last as long as 5 years (even through upgrades).

    There are two scenarios where I wouldn't use thumbdrives.
    - When running a dockers that have a LOT of I/O, particularly Plex, Jellyfin, etc. from the boot drive (If you don't relocate the Docker folder to a data drive, high I/O Dockers can greatly increase flashdrive wear.)
    - When running direct installed media servers along side of OMV, or other direct installed servers, from the boot drive.

    In either of the cases above, I would go with gderf 's SSD in USB3 enclosure (X2). With that setup you'd still have the ability to, quickly, swap boot drives.

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