You can boot an OS on USB 1.1. It would be plenty fast, depending on what you would be using it for.
The problems with flash...
1- Not many computers can boot off a USB flash drive. Very few PCs can and I have yet to hear of someone doing so on a Mac. I am currently working on a project at home that will boot Linux off a flash drive, and I have concluded that if the compter does not have a hard drive with a useable swap partition or swap file then you better hope that the computer has enough RAM.
2- The drive would have to be mounted read-only. This would be needed to save the flash drive from a VERY early death. The last thing you want is OSX using part of the drive as scratch space. The average flash based drive can last ~300,000 read/write cycles. That sounds like a lot but a computer can clear that number in a few days without a problem if it is being used as a scratch disk. So if the drive is read only, then it will last you a long time.
3- Plenty of RAM needed. If the Mac does not have a lot of ram then OSX will not have that much room to play with. I don't know if OSX will use a local hard drive for swap space but if it does you might be in luck.
I would just make a custom boot CD. Bigger then a flash drive, true, but cheap and easy.
I use a 128 MB USB 1.1 thumb drive to boot OS 9.2.2, about a 76 MB system folder. I have Diskwarrior 3, Techtool 3, Norton on it. Plug it in and hold down the option key at startup to get a choice of boot drives, click on the one you want and it boots. Repair OSX with Diskwarrior. To install OSX on a thumb drive will probably need a 2 GB size ($$$).
It is possible to have a different swap drive from the boot drive; I use a separate 3 GB swap for OSX. You just have to modify the OSX boot instructions to use the other drive. It should be easy to do so using a thumb drive, but I have no idea how much space reduction it would save on the boot disc requirements.
Comments
Originally posted by dstranathan
I would love to be able to boot X from one of those little USB "keychain dongle" things to run Norton, Disk Warrior, etc.
Can I install a (minimal, bare-bones) OS X onto a 256 MB USB flash device (Belkin, etc)?
Can I boot OS X from it?
I don't think that's possible. OS X is too big.
The problems with flash...
1- Not many computers can boot off a USB flash drive. Very few PCs can and I have yet to hear of someone doing so on a Mac. I am currently working on a project at home that will boot Linux off a flash drive, and I have concluded that if the compter does not have a hard drive with a useable swap partition or swap file then you better hope that the computer has enough RAM.
2- The drive would have to be mounted read-only. This would be needed to save the flash drive from a VERY early death. The last thing you want is OSX using part of the drive as scratch space. The average flash based drive can last ~300,000 read/write cycles. That sounds like a lot but a computer can clear that number in a few days without a problem if it is being used as a scratch disk. So if the drive is read only, then it will last you a long time.
3- Plenty of RAM needed. If the Mac does not have a lot of ram then OSX will not have that much room to play with. I don't know if OSX will use a local hard drive for swap space but if it does you might be in luck.
I would just make a custom boot CD. Bigger then a flash drive, true, but cheap and easy.
It is possible to have a different swap drive from the boot drive; I use a separate 3 GB swap for OSX. You just have to modify the OSX boot instructions to use the other drive. It should be easy to do so using a thumb drive, but I have no idea how much space reduction it would save on the boot disc requirements.