Question Anyone have any favorite, reliable thumb drives for loading the OS when building a rig?

[Caveman]

Per title, just looking to buy a few good, solid drives for loading the OS which people have had good success with.

 

[lxskllr]

I use an ancient Kingston DataTraveler. Not sure how relevant it is in a discussion today. Even if that particular brand were still available, I'm sure the guts are all different. You might want to checkout closeout style 2nd party dealers. You may be able to get fairly low capacity drives very cheaply, so if they don't work, you aren't out much money. Even something like my 4gb drive is useful for sneakernetting documents and stuff around.

edit:
Amazon has a bunch of generic Chinese multipacks pretty cheap. Good reviews for whatever that's worth. I'm thinking something like a 4gb drive isn't gonna have fraudulent capacity, or otherwise be fake since it's already about as cheap as it can get.

 

[Tech Junky]

Lately I've been using this one...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081DFPN3T

But, if you want speed use this one....

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7QDO7M

 

[Caveman]

Thank you for the recommendations.

I'm assuming that if I make a Win 10 drive then that's all I can have on there and it still load correctly, yes? Would you agree a 32GB would be big enough for an OS loading drive? I'm assuming people make a single image of the latest build (however that is done) and then keep that drive for reinstalls, etc... Am I understanding correctly?

 

[Caveman]

Also, I noticed both drives are USB 3.1, but the more expensive one is about 3X faster... but 5X the price At any rate are there any "tips/tricks" to making a OS disk for loading the OS, or do I just look one up on the net and follow the directions and all is good?

 

[Tech Junky]

@Caveman

I use the 32GB one with Ventoy and have a bunch of different ISO's on it that can boot. For a ~$10 drive it works fine for booting a variety of tools / installing OS. For Windows though something with a bit more speed like the Pro option is worthwhile if you're doing this quite often. The Pro can hit 400MB/s like an SSD vs the ~75MB/s of the cheaper option.

The Pro will boot Windows from it though if you clone a working install to it. Though using my TB4 enclosure with an NVME works better for this.

What are you trying to do? Install from USB? Clone to USB? Run W10 from USB?

They all have different requirements to work correctly. The install option is the easiest and least fussy. Cloning shouldn't be an issue to make a backup of a working install. Running though is fairly fussy in which drives you would be able to boot from and run Windows.

 

[Caveman]

Just install once every now and then from the USB... The idea of running W10 from the USB I assume is a stop gap emergency solution to get a dead PC up and running again to pull off files, etc...?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I use cheap-o Adata drives that I purchase in multi-packs and combos. I get surprised and happy when they'll make a MCT boot stick without error. (Their QC absolutely sucks.)

 

[Tech Junky]

Just install once every now and then from the USB... The idea of running W10 from the USB I assume is a stop gap emergency solution to get a dead PC up and running again to pull off files, etc...?

For installs just get the cheap ones with decent speeds.

The running a PC in your pocket can be handy if you want to boot up into your pseudo PC on a stick on any PC. Albeit easier with Linux. An instance where this could be helpful would be cloning a work PC to the USB and just booting from that rather than carrying it with you when traveling.

 

[Caveman]

Thanks for the explanation. The "My PC in my pocket" is an interesting concept. Struggling to see how that would actually work though as it would seem the drivers on the cloned disk would conflict with any other PC. Sorry for the noobiness here...

 

[Tech Junky]

Windows is dumb enough to install the correct drivers when changing drives from one system to the next. The basic generic drivers get you operational until you run a windows update and update them to the specific PC you're plugged into.

Even after a fresh windows install you can go into device manager and update individual components listed and find better drivers for them. The main items though to be concerned about with a USB PC are the video and that's an easy update to do. The rest of it's generic enough to just work. I cloned my laptop to the Pro USB I mentioned and booted up to the desktop on my server which is a completely different setup and it worked fine.

Laptop has a RTX3060 and the server is using the iGPU built into the Intel CPU. After you update / add additional drivers to the OS when you switch to / from the same systems it just works.

 

[TheELF]

I use an ancient Kingston DataTraveler. Not sure how relevant it is in a discussion today. Even if that particular brand were still available, I'm sure the guts are all different. You might want to checkout closeout style 2nd party dealers. You may be able to get fairly low capacity drives very cheaply, so if they don't work, you aren't out much money. Even something like my 4gb drive is useful for sneakernetting documents and stuff around.

edit:
Amazon has a bunch of generic Chinese multipacks pretty cheap. Good reviews for whatever that's worth. I'm thinking something like a 4gb drive isn't gonna have fraudulent capacity, or otherwise be fake since it's already about as cheap as it can get.

4Gb is too small for the new OSeses, they are about 5Gb so you need at least a 8Gb usb to make a windows installation media.

Thank you for the recommendations.

I'm assuming that if I make a Win 10 drive then that's all I can have on there and it still load correctly, yes? Would you agree a 32GB would be big enough for an OS loading drive? I'm assuming people make a single image of the latest build (however that is done) and then keep that drive for reinstalls, etc... Am I understanding correctly?

Look up a guide on rufus, it's one of the best tools to get windows and other things on your USB, and no any free space left can be used as a normal usb to copy files on.
Although it is a good idea to create it and put it into a drawer and don't touch it until you need it so you don't mess it up or it doesn't fail from wear when you really need it.

 

[Shmee]

Rufus can be good for specifically setting up Windows installers with custom settings, such as bypassing Windows 11 hardware requirements.

In general though, for most bootable images I may want to boot or install, I just use a USB drive with Ventoy on it. Can be a cheap, simple thumb drive or an external SSD. An old SATA SSD you have lying around, say even a 128GB or 256GB, can be put in an external USB enclosure and have Ventoy installed on it. Then just copy ISOs over and any other files you want to have on the drive. These drives will be much faster, more reliable, and usually will hold more than a thumb drive.

 

[Tech Junky]

@Shmee

I switched to Ventoy recently due to getting tired of Rufus needing to format every time I wanted to switch ISOs. It's fairly slick and less time spent "burning" to the USB.

I'm trying to recall though if I had an issue with W11 from Ventoy or not. Something says there was an issue at some point but, a dedicated W11 USB wouldn't be a bad idea with a higher speed rating since windows is a speed hog due to the size of the WIM file. Faster you get out of install mode on W the better.

Being able to just add ISOs though makes it more practical when reusing old drives in enclosures as you mentioned.

@TheELF

Rufus has its place for some things but, Ventoy is easier to deal with. If you have to bypass install requirements you know what you're getting yourself into The benefits of W11 though won't be very useful on older HW anyway so, is it really worth the pain to deal with it? Having 2 x ADL systems it's worthwhile and even moving up from 21H2 to 22H2 showed some resource improvement on the laptop but, that was a bit of a convoluted upgrade process.

 

[kschendel]

USB drives are pretty much a commodity. I have a couple Samsungs, and something calling itself a datastick.

My favorite drive is too small for an OS, unfortunately; I use it for sneakernet file transfers. It's a 128 MB drive that I got as conference swag, ages ago. The MB is not a typo.

 

[q52]

Microcenter brand USB 2.0 flash drives. I think they only come in 8GB sizes these days which is enough. Roughly $2 USD each.

In the early days of USB 3 i tried various USB 3 drives and had trouble with pretty much all of them. I'm sure things are different today but i went back to USB 2 and never had problems.

The Microcenter USB 2 drives are cheap enough and reliable so i grab a couple each time i stop by, I've got enough that i can just leave drives permanently configured for a single OS install. I just use tape and sharpie to label each drive with the OS version it contains. Easy. No issues, ever.

 

[Oyeve]

I use those solid metal samsung ones. Haven't failed me in years. I have a few on my Keychain and even had a couple go thru the washer/dryer and they came out unscathed.