Most of us may not know you can get an operating system on your USB flash drive. It might surprise many. But that’s the truth. Firmware available in our PCs allows booting to take place from these drives. You can easily launch operating systems from a bootable flash drive in these circumstances. These flash drives are commonly referred to as Live USB. Generally, Linux operating systems are available through this method. However, some versions of flash drives offer MS Windows operating systems.
Live USBs can be used for special tasks like installing operating systems across a network or loading minimal kernels for embedded operations. A properly configured Windows USB flash drive can install Windows XP on a drive. If there is extra space in the drive, you can even install the software in it. But for all this, a large disk is required. The final result will be a portable operating system that can be operated during emergencies.
Linux operating systems are available in these Live USBs. These Live USBs’ functionality and usage capabilities are comparable to those with live CDs. You can perform many tasks with these live USBs, like distributing and recovering various data. On a few counts, live USBs are different from live CDs.
For example, while retrieving data from CDs is almost impossible as they are permanently written, live USBs allow data to be retrieved and modified per the user’s need. Hence, these drives can be effectively used for personal storage purposes. All These live USBs can carry out all personal applications and configurations. Moreover, they can be employed for a single system intended to be used by multiple users over a network.
Like any other storage device, Live USBs have their own advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, Live USB’s provide an extra bit of privacy. This is possible because Live USBs can be carried with the user wherever they go, and the data stored in the device is in a safe location. There are a few drawbacks associated with these devices as well. As live USBs are small, they can get lost or misplaced. Retrieving them could then be an impossible task. The small size of these drives also means encryption and making backups that much more important and a bit tricky.
USB drives have a faster seek time than optical media and hard drives. This is because they don’t have any movable parts. This could also mean programs can start faster on these drives than on a hard drive or a live CD.
Related Articles :
Some USB devices boot slowly due to low data transfer speeds. Also, older computers may not support booting from flash drives as they don’t have an inbuilt BIOS. Using USB drives to boot an operating system might even reduce the life span of the drives.
Having an operating system traveling with you wherever you go is extremely useful for professionals who are always on the move. Many online tutorials can guide you in using these flash drives. Make sure you have one.
