Running linux through thunderbolt.

[FredBC]

For work I usually need a dualboot, and I've always been under the impression that having the operating systems in seperate drives, rather than partitioning a bigger one, is saffer (saffer as in less likely to cause me trouble) but correct me if I'm wrong. In my current laptop I removed the disc drive and put a second SSD in its place.

However my laptop is getting old, and I'm thinking about getting a new one. Sadly, most thin laptops these days cannot fit two drives. Say if I bought one with a thunderbolt 3 port, could I get an adapter and run linux from an external nvme stick? Would it run seaminglessly? Is there a better way to do it? 

[FloRolf]

Running nvme for that case is pretty pointless. You can easily run Linux off of a regular USB 2.0 HDD or even a Thumb drive. I'd recommend an USB 3 ssd tho if you are on a regular. 

[FredBC]

9 hours ago, FloRolf said:

Running nvme for that case is pretty pointless. You can easily run Linux off of a regular USB 2.0 HDD or even a Thumb drive. I'd recommend an USB 3 ssd tho if you are on a regular. 

Well, since thunderbolt 3 passes 4xPCIe I thought it would make a difference

[FloRolf]

26 minutes ago, FredBC said:

Well, since thunderbolt 3 passes 4xPCIe I thought it would make a difference

Obviously nvme would be quite a lot faster over sata ssd but that doesn't justify the price difference etc.

Plus I doubt you would notice any difference. 

[FiveSquared25]

11 hours ago, FredBC said:

Well, since thunderbolt 3 passes 4xPCIe I thought it would make a difference

This bad boi

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S

And this

https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-External-Enclosure-Support-Tool-Free/dp/B01LY97QE8

will solve your problems

[Lenovo1984]

For what you need to do, I'd just use a SATA SSD in a USB 3 enclosure. They're cheap (the SSDs and enclosures) and work great.