USB booting :: USB Boot vs HD Install
I'm new to DSL, and thought that maybe someone here can answer this question for me. Is running DSL from a USB pen really faster than loading it to a hard drive?
Being an "old-schooler" I assumed that I needed to load DSL to the HD for it to run my only hardware. But I see on these forums, in the DSL store, and in the downloads that the HD is really optional. Is using a USB pen faster/better than the HD? How do you save your files? And what is the Frugal install?
I am relatively new myself, but I'll try to explain the way I understand it:
DSL is first of all meant to be a "live-CD"/USB system. Meaning it is kept small, so you can carry it around on removable media and boot it up anywhere. For saving your data, you can either do it on the usb-stick, or - if there is net-access - you can backup to a ftp-server (or elsewhere) - there is integrated support for that.
Of course running from HD will be faster than USB/CD, so some people that wished to use DSL permanently, found ways to do. Early on, was the "HD-install", where you installed it to the HD like a "normal" distribution: The benefit was that it was pretty fast, and you could customize it without having to think much about it, however it had the big drawback, that there was no upgrade-path. And given that releases for DSL appear quick and are nice, another way was needed.
The frugal-install was born. It basically behaves like a "normal" boot from CD/USB, however the image is copied to the HD and used from there. Thus it's faster to load, relatively easy to customize (you can map your /home and /opt directories to a persistent partition), AND you can very easily update, simply by replacing the image (and sometimes copying over some files to your /home).
So to get started, you are best off, to burn a CD and explore the possibilities. Once you get comfortable a bit you can go with a frugal install.
Running DSL from USB 2.0 high speed pendrive that is connected to a computer that has a USB 2.0 controller inside is very fast.
It is similar to an internal hard drive in terms of speed.
However, if you have 128MB of RAM or more, you can't beat the speed of a "toram" bootup from either USB, CDROM or hard drive frugal install.
The entire OS will run from a RAMdisk with speed MUCH faster than a hard drive.
You will need to use the DSL backup/restore process, because otherwise your data will disappear when you turn off your computer.
original here.