Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Paul Earland · Joined: 16 Jan 2013 Posts: 26

Hello. Sorry if this is and odd question, but wondered what was the best USB memory size for linux Puppy. Sure I read somewhere that too much memory can cause some problems. Was looking at 16GB only because this was the only size in stock for the type I was looking for.

Thanks.

Master_wrong · Joined: 19 Mar 2008 Posts: 455

p310don · Posted: Sun 20 Jan 2013, 10:08 Post subject:

There is no problem with the size of the memory stick. 16g works well.

The only consideration is that most memory sticks and other flash media are formatted to FAT32. In that filesystem, the biggest file you can put on the drive is 4gig. In everyday life, that won't present a problem, but, if you ever need to have a single file larger than 4g (DVD ISO eg) then you may need to format it to a different file system.

duke93535 · Posted: Sun 20 Jan 2013, 13:41 Post subject:

The antique bios on my Gigabit mother board, which is the newest we have, is limited to only loading 4Gb partitions of USB flash memory.

My dad’s has a little bit older As Rock board and it sees anything we have used. Just be aware that some bios have limitations.

duke

greengeek · Joined: 20 Jul 2010 Posts: 1184 Location: New Zealand

I have both a 16GB and a 32GB usb stick permanently plugged in to my laptop to give me more storage capacity and I have had no problems in any puppy.

I have tried a variety of different partition setups and tend to have a 4-8GB FAT32 partition on most sticks so that I can easily transfer files to a MAC or Win machine if necessary, and then I use the rest of the stick for an ext2 or ext3 partition (and also a 512MB linux swap partition)

If you are referring to problems caused by size of the pupsave personal save file the biggest I have run is just over one gig, but I do remember reading about someone who was running an 8gig savefile. That sounds risky to me but I really don't know the practical limits - it probably depends on the version of Puppy you run.

OscarTalks · Joined: 05 Feb 2012 Posts: 323 Location: London, England

Flash · Posted: Sun 20 Jan 2013, 20:57 Post subject:

James C · Joined: 26 Mar 2009 Posts: 4734 Location: Kentucky

My new 16 gb flash drive.......formatted FAT32. Haven't noticed any trouble using it in my old hardware.

RetroTechGuy · Joined: 15 Dec 2009 Posts: 2298 Location: USA

Monsie · Joined: 01 Dec 2011 Posts: 464 Location: Kamloops BC Canada

Paul,

Most flash drives are packaged with fat 32. If you use GParted then you can re-format the drive partition as ext 2 or ext 3 This will eliminate the 4gb file size limitation of fat 32. While Puppy can handle fat 32 okay, you will probably get better performance from ext 2 or 3.

When I first started running Puppy, I used a 2 gb flash drive. After six months, I switched to a 4gb flash drive because as Puppy "grew" on me, I ran out of space. For most people, 4gb is sufficient, and anything more is a bonus. Like RetroTechGuy said:

Burn_IT · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 644 Location: Tamworth UK

The trick is to save as much as you can OUTSIDE the Puppy save file. It is also safer in that as far as the media is concerned Puppy (frugal) is mainly just one huge file and any damage to that is far more likely than if you have many smaller files.

RetroTechGuy · Joined: 15 Dec 2009 Posts: 2298 Location: USA