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Le Flaneur · Dec 14, 2010, 11:17 PM

I had this realization when I learned that the new MacBook Airs ship with their OS installer on a flash drive: no longer do I need a dedicated partition on a 2.5" FireWire disk drive with an OS and disk utilities (DiskWarrior) so that I can run hard disk checks after a system freeze away from home.

A bootable flash drive is the way to go nowadays, isn't it?

Eug · Dec 15, 2010, 12:24 AM

That would work, but... I tried installing OS X 10.6 on a very fast 16 GB USB flash drive (but not an SSD). It worked but it was slow as hell. Perhaps it would be better on a 32 GB drive, but it would still not be fast.

Plus USB flash drives aren't meant to act as regular disk drives anyway. They don't have the repeated write lifespan that SSDs enjoy.

Le Flaneur · 08:47 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

That would work, but... I tried installing OS X 10.6 on a very fast 16 GB USB flash drive (but not an SSD). It worked but it was slow as hell. Perhaps it would be better on a 32 GB drive, but it would still not be fast.

Plus USB flash drives aren't meant to act as regular disk drives anyway. They don't have the repeated write lifespan that SSDs enjoy.

Yes, I figure that speed would be an issue. Which model did you use? I'm thinking of this one. It offers at least 20 MB/sec.

Of course, a bootable DVD is probably slower.

There's no point in buying an SSD just to have a bootable emergency disk. Besides, the small size of the flash drive is an advantage -- you can always have it with you.

CharlesS · Dec 15, 2010, 02:19 PM

There's no way it's going to be as slow as a boot CD or DVD, and it's not like an emergency rescue drive is something you use on a regular basis such that speed would really be a deal-killer. I say go for it.

turtle777 · Dec 15, 2010, 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

That would work, but... I tried installing OS X 10.6 on a very fast 16 GB USB flash drive (but not an SSD). It worked but it was slow as hell. Perhaps it would be better on a 32 GB drive, but it would still not be fast.

Because too much unnecessary crap is installed, and it's not optimized.

I would use Leo 911, if it wasn't pirated

-t

Le Flaneur · Dec 15, 2010, 02:49 PM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Because too much unnecessary crap is installed, and it's not optimized.

I would use Leo 911, if it wasn't pirated

How should one optimize the software on the flash drive once it is installed? Use Drive Genius's disk optimizer?

turtle777 · Dec 15, 2010, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by Le Flaneur

How should one optimize the software on the flash drive once it is installed? Use Drive Genius's disk optimizer?

I dunno, that's above my ~~pay~~geek grade.

I only know that Leo 911 does exactly that, but it's illegal.

-t

Eug · Dec 15, 2010, 04:02 PM

The flash drive I used was a quad channel Patriot XT Rage.

Originally Posted by CharlesS

There's no way it's going to be as slow as a boot CD or DVD, and it's not like an emergency rescue drive is something you use on a regular basis such that speed would really be a deal-killer. I say go for it.

Actually, boot DVDs for those utilities are faster than OS X on a flash drive.

Can we install those utilities on a flash drive without installing the whole OS X?

CharlesS · Dec 15, 2010, 05:37 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Actually, boot DVDs for those utilities are faster than OS X on a flash drive.

Those DVDs can only run the one utility, though. A full rescue DVD that contained all your favorite utilities as well as the Finder to launch them will be much slower than a flash drive.

jmiddel · Dec 15, 2010, 10:01 PM

Plus, DVDs are sort of uncomfortable in your pocket. On the other hand, the Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32GB costs $71.19 at Amazon. For about the same price, I can get a 320G external USB 2.0 drive, from OWC, that actually feels like a wallet in one of my pockets. That's what works for me

CharlesS · Dec 15, 2010, 10:32 PM

There are some 32 GB drives under $40 at Amazon and Newegg.