Thanks for the A2A.
It’s really amazing. I’ve written about this many times and yet the same questions keep popping up again and again and again.
From a technical point of view, all data is ones and zeros and USB thumb drives are just another storage device. Compared to a hard drive, they just differ in size and the method they use, to represent the ones and zeros in the storage space. Meaning, it’s definitely possible to install Windows on a USB thumb drive and boot it from there. It’s just another storage device.
If you run the operating system from a USB thumb drive, you don’t run it from RAM by the way. You run it from RAM, if you run it from RAM. So, you either need to use an operating system that does that. Like the outdated and discontinued Damn Small Linux for example.
That said, this has TONS of disadvantages and you should never do it! If so, only temporarily as last resort. Why?
First of all, an SSD will give you a reading speed of approx. 450MB/s. A HDD will give you a reading speed of like up to 190MB/s. A USB 3.0 drive will give you a max. of like 160MB/s. A USB 2.0 drive will give you like 45MB/s. We are already at 1/10 of the speed of the SSD. So, if you think that it’s a coincidence that Rys Lee said, it’s very slow, then you might want to think again. Because there are actual technical explanations for that. And 1/10 of the speed is not slightly slower anymore. With a bloated operating system like Windows, that’s really bad!
But it gets worse!
Did you ever use your thumb drives for a while and try to transfer a few things at the same time? Because this is what you are going to do with your operating system! It’s going to run multiple applications from the thumb drive at the same time, read and write data,… you know. You know what happens if you do?
Let me explain it to you. All drives drop in performance upon use and especially heavy use. That’s little and negligible with internal hard drives and SSDs. That’s more with USB hard drives. USB thumb drives actually drop below 3MB/s and even into the KB/s range. And that’s not a rare thing either. This renders your operating system unresponsive. Is that what you want from your operating system?
And we are still not at the end. Most operating systems are going to also tie you to the specific USB port you used during the installation AND Windows is also and DEFINITELY going to tie you to the particular hardware you install it on. So, you can just use it somewhere else and likely not even on another USB port on the same device.
Oh, but there is more…
Do you actually understand, that this technology is meant to be combined in a way where ONE operating system goes with ONE device? Windows is licensed for ONE device and not for 10. The devices we use are created in a way that suggests to use internal hard drives for the operating system, not REMOVABLE drives! Because the thing always needs an operating system to run and it needs to be adjusted to the hardware. See drivers for example.
Meaning, as nice as the idea of an operating system on a mobile storage device might be, the technology actually doesn’t support the idea!
So, is it possible? Yes it definitely is. Is it a good idea? NOT AT ALL!
No offense, but I’m really wondering, when this is ever going to sink in. But luckily there are always the YES screamers, to support bad ideas.
Short: this is a VERY bad idea and you should only use it as a last resort and only for the shortest time period possible. The same holds true for other options like Linux live systems. They are lighter and better suited for this than Windows. But that doesn’t make it a good idea in general.
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