USB sticks

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oui · #1 Post by **oui** » Tue 04 Dec 2018, 21:19

I did get problems copying a set of my files onto on USB stick 64 GB. Those did include sub dir's like /root/.mozilla (a sub dir including a lot of links.

As I don't use some Windows about 10 y. any more (and not have some one on some hard disk) I am not accustomed any more to "think in vfat".

probably i my 64 GB stick not able to be used so for Linux

and probably I have to format it into an for Linux more adequate format (probably ext4 or perhaps ext2, why not as I use it only for data transfer or saving)?

are some other thing to take in consideration about such so big USB sticks?

fredx181 · #2 Post by **fredx181** » Tue 04 Dec 2018, 21:26

Hi oui,

The FAT filesystem doesn't support symlinks, so yes, better format to Linux filesystem.

Fred

rufwoof · #3 Post by **rufwoof** » Wed 05 Dec 2018, 00:22

Archive the files first. You can even use mksquashfs (and unsquashfs) to do that and store/transfer that single file onto a fat usb.

mikeslr · #4 Post by **mikeslr** » Wed 05 Dec 2018, 00:51

Hi oui,

If you're never going to use it on a Windows system (including transferring files to such) than certainly there's no reason to use the Fat32 format.

Which Linux format? Linux Ext2 is more prone to corruption. That's because it's not journalized: Ext3 and Ext4 are. Journalizing involves more writing to the drive. You can turn off journalizing in Ext4, but not Ext3. But turning off journalizing in Ext4 results in a format as likely to be corruptible as Ext2. Moreover, if you're formatting using any distro other than Puppies, they will probably create a 64-bit Linux Ext4 drive/partition. Puppies can read 64-bit Ext4s, but grub4dos can't properly write to them. Puppies' gparted creates 32-bit Ext4 drives/partitions.

Ext4 was developed so that drives greater than (IIRC) 16 Terabytes could be managed. That's Terabytes -- not gigabytes. You're not likely to find a USB-Stick which requires such management.

So the choice appears to be between Ext2 (with its greater likely-hood of becoming corrupt) and Ext3 which may cause the USB-Stick to wear-out sooner.

When USB-Sticks became available, it was estimated --read that as a guess-- that they would wear out after about 100,000 writes. It was a guess because it actually wasn't tested. It was based on an analogy to some other program. But it was a major concern because most Linux Distros do not distinguish between RAM and Storage. Each time you type the word 'the' it might have to write to storage 3 times. Puppies, however, 'run-in-ram' and don't write to Storage unless (a) you leave the Automatic Save set at its default once-every-30 minutes; (b) more or less frequently by setting Puppy Event Manager Save Session to some other amount including (c) never, except when a Manual Save is executed.

I don't know where the current estimate comes from, but it's now estimated that it will take 1 Million writes before a USB-Stick wears out. Maybe newer ones are built better. You're far more likely to loose it than wear it out. So there really isn't any valid reason to use the unjournalized Ext2 format.

Ext 3 should be able to easily handle a 64-Gb USB-Key. But partitioning it to provide 2 or 3 smaller partitions may have an advantage in organizing files.

backi · #5 Post by **backi** » Wed 05 Dec 2018, 11:10

Rufwoof wrote:

Archive the files first. You can even use mksquashfs (and unsquashfs) to do that and store/transfer that single file onto a fat usb.

Cool Tip.......good to know ......had Problems regarding Symlinks copying to an external Harddrive fat formatted .
Helps a lot .
Thanks !

#6 Post by **Flash** » Wed 05 Dec 2018, 17:49

I've used Gparted to reformat several large-capacity (32 GB) USB sticks to NTFS so that they would work in either Puppy or Windows. That hasn't caused any problems that I can recall. Puppy seems to have no problem using NTFS partitions.

Mike Walsh · #7 Post by **Mike Walsh** » Wed 05 Dec 2018, 20:01

Hi, oui.

I use a pair of SanDisk Cruzer Ultra 'Fit' 128 GB flash drives as 'permanent' external storage on an elderly Dell Inspiron lappie (P4-powered, around 2002/3). I run them formatted to ext3, and have never, ever had any problems with 'em.

Like you, I haven't used Windows for years. Per bigpup's tip, I've even removed the 'Windows' entry in the Grub4DOS menu'; pointless having it there, since it will never be used.

I agree with t'other Mike. Ext3 is definitely 'safer' than ext2, especially where data is concerned. You can always re-install yr Puppy from a recent backup (I assume you do 'back-up' regularly, yes?).....but where your personal data is concerned, it should be considered to be like gold-dust, and treated accordingly.

Since ext4 is intended for handling extremely large volume sizes, and Pup is so small, there really is no advantage to be gained from using it.

Just my two-penn'orth, FWIW.

Mike.

8Geee · #8 Post by **8Geee** » Wed 05 Dec 2018, 20:42

As far as USB stick life... The initial ones were SLC rated 100K R/W cycles. Then came MLC, and the life dropped to 10K R/W cycles. MLC has now matured, and has had about a 50% increase in speed in the last 2-3 years, coupled with a lifetime of 50K-100K R/W cycles.

Talking about USB2.0 sticks, these are near the upper end of R/W lifetime with about a 20Mb/sec read and 4-6Mb write. Thats about as fast and long as it gets for USB2.0.

USB3.0 can run 80Mb/sec, with the caveat of a 50K R/W cycle.

Considering older MLC's ran 10Mb/sec read and 1-2Mb/sec write, with a 10-20K R/W cycle, even the USB2.0 sticks today are a vast improvement. The Patriot MINI-X sticks I still have run about 12/2 (boots AtomicPup-XIX in 90 sec.s) with 10K lifetime... these are 5 years old. The SanDisk Cruzer Fits (stubby) run 20/5 (boots AtomicPup-XIX in 52-54 sec.s) with 80-100K life. These are 2-3 years old.

IMHO these newer usb Stubbys are worth the price if you stick to a name brand. One can find 32gb versions today-right now for US$9-10. A cheap investment. /MHO

Regards
8Geee

oui · #9 Post by **oui** » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 08:15

hi

very good impulses! I thank you!

mksquashfs is a good proposal as my core*I7 8GBram second Laptop can squash very fast (the data are on it) and unsquash don't need the same power. but my old PC, where the data have to be transmitted has only pentium 3/4GBram and the first laptop with AMD64 only 2GBram have both time comportment limits AND ram limit. I did 5..8 ago work intensively with them both to produce big iso's (from SliTaz, as also SliTaz can be remastered about like Puppy, but with the complete development system in it, the SliTaz ISO become really very very heavy...). I did meet big problem: it was not possible to handle ISO bigger than about 1/3 .. 1/2 size of my computer RAM!

I don't no if I did make in the past a wrong usage of mksquashfs or if it did be become later the possibility to squash flat really big file systems? I will inspect now the command set of the actual versions of mksquashfs

kind regards

dogle · #10 Post by **dogle** » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 11:43

I've been so confused for so long over which filesystem to use when formatting that I was about to raise a thread myself, had not oui saved me the trouble ...

Thanks everyone, and especially to mikeslr and Mike Walsh, for making it all so much clearer.

Now, given the information in this thread, can anyone guess why BK was specifically advocating the use of Ext4 in his post yesterday?

http://bkhome.org/news/201812/permanent ... ve-cd.html

rufwoof · #11 Post by **rufwoof** » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 12:00

dogle wrote:Now, given the information in this thread, can anyone guess why BK was specifically advocating the use of Ext4 in his post yesterday?

If you store things on a USB that could more easily be lost/stolen, then encryption is advisable. http://bkhome.org/news/201806/encryptio ... asyos.html

backi · #12 Post by **backi** » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 12:04

Hi oui !

Here is a cool Frontend to pack/compress Files and Folders .
Packit 1.15
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=89211

Works in Bionic Dog too .The pet can be extracted ....to start it just click on usr/local/apps/Pack it to make it load on the Fly.
Or convert the pet into a deb Package and install it permanently.Works in Bionic Dog.
Whole lot of Compression Options ......cool Tool .!

dogle · #13 Post by **dogle** » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 12:27

rufwoof - thanks for that brilliant 'lightbulb'!

oui · #14 Post by **oui** » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 13:39

Hi

Thank you very much backi for those detailled instructions!

Add to my last message:

oui wrote: mksquashfs is a good proposal as my core*I7 8GBram second Laptop can squash very fast...

... I did meet big problem: it was not possible to handle ISO bigger than about 1/3 .. 1/2 size of my computer RAM!

it is of course dependant of my way to use Puppy (or SliTaz in the past) out a frugal install: RAM ist the main drive of the frugal install and you can not exceed it's size if, at operating time, you can't assign a different drive for the internal operation.

Greetings

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USB sticks

USB sticks