Can you put the entire computer on a stick?

[Mac1337]

I didn't think of this first but read somewhere that it can be done. The idea is to put the entire hard drive, OS and all, on a flash drive then be able to run it by plugging it in any computer.

[Winston]

Isn't that what Apple is doing with its Lion OS USB drives? They're for installation, but they run the computer while doing so.

The issue you'd run into is that the Mac OS installer installs things specific to a given computer. So you might find incompatibilities if you tried to use one OS install over a range of computers. But no reason it wouldn't work for several similar computers.

Then there's NetBoot...


Good luck.

- Winston

[Chakravartin]

You'd be hard-pressed to find a flash drive of sufficient capacity for everything on most people's drives.

But some people's stuff might fit very nicely onto a SSD.

[Racer X]

well, a 64 gig thumbdrive is $55, so it isn't that hard if you don't carry around all your music or videos. Or carry 2 thumbdrives, one with your multi media files.

[ztirffritz]

Ubuntu has been doing this for several years.

[WHiiP]

Dakota wrote:
I didn't think of this first but read somewhere that it can be done. The idea is to put the entire hard drive, OS and all, on a flash drive then be able to run it by plugging it in any computer.

Welcome to 2011 . . . :damnyou:

[volcs0]

Been done.

http://news.cnet.com/raspberry-pi-comput...k-for-only-$25/8301-17938_105-20060489-1.html

[Mac1337]

WHiiP wrote:
[quote=Dakota]
I didn't think of this first but read somewhere that it can be done. The idea is to put the entire hard drive, OS and all, on a flash drive then be able to run it by plugging it in any computer.

Welcome to 2011 . . . :damnyou:
Are you sure you know what I am asking?

[Filliam H. Muffman]

ztirffritz wrote:
Ubuntu has been doing this for several years.

I have been using Ubuntu on a 16 GB flash drive for over a year.


If Apple had USB 3, you could be getting 250 GB/s with a SSD and just take it from machine to machine, No USB 3 soup for you!
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