Which USB flash drive for Windows To Go

[matejdro]

Which 16GB flash drive do you recommend for Windows To Go? I want to run it at somewhat reasonable speed.

Also, how much is 16GB for a windows installation? Would that be enough for Windows 8 + basic programs (Office, firefox, etc.)?

 

[zbaracki]

16GB can be not enough, as right now my windows folder has 16.2GB after 3 days of working on win8.
it is still without any user files, programs etc.
however, wtg seems to support 16GB drives (this is minimal requirement) and i won't expect enough free space after putting whole system on it.

so you will need 32GB drive (at least).
MS is highly recommending USB3

if u looking for a fast and reliable USB2 drive, that have a big chance of handling it, try patriot XPorter series. i',m using them all the time. (the first one that i got was xporter 8gb. its 4 years old now, visited interiors of washing mashine 3 times, dropped from 30meters!, used as pvr etc, still works like new)

 

[matejdro]

I managed to run stripped version of Win7 on 4GB drive of eee701, so it should be more than possible to run it off 16GB. USB3 does not help much because majority of computers does not have it and point of portable version is that you can run it off every computer.

 

[whs]

A USB3 stick is nearly as fast in Read/Write as a spinning disk and it is a lot faster in access time. So the interest in Win8 To Go on USB3 is speed. It should be faster than if you run it e.g. from a laptop spinner @5400RPM.

I'd love to try it out but have not yet found an easy method to install it on the stick. A few attempts via cmd failed miserably.