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Ubuntu on MicroSD?

Sandi1987
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No. Running an OS is just like transferring programs onto and off of a drive. You might not get amazing performance, because MicroSD cards typically have much lower read/write speeds than SSDs (or even hard drives, in some cases), but it won't damage the drive. 

Main PC:

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X • Noctua NH-D15 • MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk • 2x8GB G.skill Trident Z Neo 3600MHz CL16 • MSI VENTUS 3X GeForce RTX 3070 OC • Samsung 970 Evo 1TB • Samsung 860 Evo 1TB • Cosair iCUE 465X RGB • Corsair RMx 750W (White)

 

Peripherals/Other:

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Laptop (Dell XPS 13):

Intel Core i7-1195G7 • Intel Iris Xe Graphics • 16GB LPDDR4x 4267MHz • 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD • 13.4" OLED 3.5K InfinityEdge Display (3456x2160, 400nit, touch). 

 

Got any questions about my system or peripherals? Feel free to tag me (@bellabichon) and I'll be happy to give you my two cents. 

 

PSA: Posting a PCPartPicker list with no explanation isn't helpful for first-time builders :)

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Yes, you can if you use it enough. SD cards aren't great for running operating systems as they're slow, and they aren't the highest quality so they will fail eventually. 

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

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SDcard have a low write cycle, that's why it's cheaper than SSD.

The fastest sdcard today is UHS-3 which is 300mb/s, still lower than a normal sata SSD, and stupendously expensive.

If you don't care about speed / durability like for running it in raspberry, it's fine.

Ryzen 5700g @ 4.4ghz all cores | Asrock B550M Steel Legend | 3060 | 2x 16gb Micron E 2666 @ 4200mhz cl16 | 500gb WD SN750 | 12 TB HDD | Deepcool Gammax 400 w/ 2 delta 4000rpm push pull | Antec Neo Eco Zen 500w

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Yes, I have killed a couple. Usually they end up becoming write protected after awhile, same with USB Flash Drives.

How long it will last, depends on what you do with it. If it's mostly for the purpose of booting the OS and storing data on a separate drive it will last much longer than storing and accessing everything on the card constantly. Depending on your use case and the quality of the sd card, it could last a couple years or die in a couple weeks.

For something portable and reliable, I would recommend a external hdd/ssd enclosure.

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