Anyone know of long lasting big-storage flash drives that I could look into? Interested in the idea of having a reliable, portable computer anywhere I go in the form of a little USB drive

I remember seeing a picture on LambdaJS of an ultra deckeed out USB that had a USBC connector, an SD card slot, and other goodies along with storage by default. I don't know what it is orr how useful it actually would be but I think that'd be something I'd be interested in. Not sure how fast it'd be, tho

1. A SABRENT SATA-to-USB adaptor cable
2. A 1.6 TB Toshiba SSD from Craigslist
3. A custom image of Tiny11 23H2
4. A laptop to carry in case you're in a remote location

That's my setup. When I go to my university, I sometimes use 4090s.

Sabrent makes an excellent toolless NVMe enclosure as well. They're pricey, and you have to provide the drive itself, but I believe it to be unbeatable.
I feel it's only caveat is the unreliability I've found with Type C. YMMV with that.

Grab yourself an:

• NVMe M.2 enclosure
• Good NVMe M.2 SSD
• NVMe to USB adapter

These seem good but I'd imagine it'd be slightly more complex than just having a single USB stick and plugging it in anywhere you go, right? How's the overall workflow especially when it comes to using it across several machines? Public use?

Bump. Really interested in this right now as well since I got a new laptop recently and I'm looking to upgrade my daily workflow to make it werk consistently across multiple devices no matter what the circumstances are.

For my laptop, I would probably install Linux while on the portable storage I could install Windows 7 or something on it.
Windows To Go? I was thinking about getting a 1 TB or more SSD and putting 7 on it for Windows programs since the main SSD would have Linux on it. Actually, I think it'd be even better if I could insert the portable storage and choose to boot from Windows 7 AND Linux. Is that even possible? Can I have portable storage and boot into multiple OSes on it while having a "normie" OS on the device I'm using??

I don't even know how I'd go along doing this kind of thing... Ventoy?
Can it go like:
1 TB portable SSD

Step 1 - ventoy it, creates 2 partitions

Step 2 - cut ventoy storage partition in half to separate ventoy boot from intended SSD space, ventoy keeps 150/250 gigs and intended SSD space keeps 750

Intended SSD partition gets WindowsToGo 7

ventoy partition gets all of my isos

then, install Linux on laptop main SSD, boot to 7 from external SSD.

Dual boot strategy would require me cutting ventoy storage partition into thirds so I can have my Windows partition and Linux partition right next to the Ventoy iso storage partition which itself can also be used as a form of consistent shared storage between the two operating systems..

would this all just werk?

What should I purchase for what I'm trying to do? More storage = better but I don't want it to be really slow and I would also like for it to live for more than a couple of years.

A regular external SSD that you plug in anywhere will do the trick. Just don't break it and make an occasional backup and you'll be fine for years.

Haven't used an SSD in 11 years since my last one died. I'm stuck in my ways. Isn't an external SSD the worst fucking thing you could ever do for a "portable computer"?