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Bootable Linux USB stick: Difference between revisions
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→for techies: taking care of the stick
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This is sensible to do after deleting large amounts of data from the USB stick, and before saving and compressing an image of it. It also seems to result in faster writes afterwards i.e. it may be a way to restore the write speed of the stick. | This is sensible to do after deleting large amounts of data from the USB stick, and before saving and compressing an image of it. It also seems to result in faster writes afterwards i.e. it may be a way to restore the write speed of the stick. | ||
A better method that does not wear the stick (flash media support a limited number of writes!) is to use TRIM. The SANdisk Extreme supports TRIM, as <code>hdparm -I</code> shows. However, neither the <code>fstrim</code> command nor the <code>discard</code> mount option work for USB sticks (at least not the ones that I tested), presumably because the | A better method that does not wear the stick (flash media support a limited number of writes!) is to use TRIM. The SANdisk Extreme supports TRIM, as <code>hdparm -I</code> shows. However, neither the <code>fstrim</code> command nor the <code>discard</code> mount option work for USB sticks (at least not the ones that I tested), presumably because the usb-storage kernel module does not pass the ATA trim command through the USB bridge and controller to the device. | ||
The workaround I found is to use the <code>wiper.sh</code> script which is part of the <code>hdparm</code> package. For me, this | The workaround I found is to use the <code>wiper.sh</code> script which is part of the <code>hdparm</code> package - this uses <code>hdparm</code> directly. For me, this seems to work, as verified with the [https://sites.google.com/site/lightrush/random-1/checkiftrimonext4isenabledandworking test_trim.sh] script. Use it on your own risk! | ||
For initializing the whole stick or a specific partition, [http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/97143/utility-to-trim-unallocated-space-on-drive <code>blkdiscard</code>] may work - I have not yet checked it. I do believe that <code>hdparm</code>'s (ENHANCED) SECURITY ERASE should | For initializing the whole stick or a specific partition, [http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/97143/utility-to-trim-unallocated-space-on-drive <code>blkdiscard</code>] may work - I have not yet checked it. I do believe that <code>hdparm</code>'s (ENHANCED) SECURITY ERASE should initialize the whole stick - again, I have not yet tried it. | ||