Power efficiency: 8+ GPU rig running normal OS from USB?

[jmigdlc99]

Does anyone have experience running the OS of a mining rig with more than 8 GPUs from a USB? Can you do this with traditional operating systems like linux and windows?
Actually, I already know this can be done, my question is actually is it efficient and worth doing? Or will it just be a big headache?

Im asking because as far as I know running off from USB is more power efficient than running the OS from an SSD. Electricity isn't exactly cheap from where I am and I am looking to do this to reduce power costs.

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[farfanx4]

My friend told me tried it but it s was t efficient, he told he lost about 1.5M/h per GPU. And after some time he got a lot of errors and some GPU got disconnected.

[xxcsu]

That few watts or less different between usb stick and ssd not going to cost you any noticeable amount of money .
if you are using 1 watt and paying 0.25$/kwh , you paying around 2.2$ for a year
if you are using 1 watt and paying 0.10$/kwh , you paying around 0.9$ for a year
SSD much faster

USB Flash Drive


SSD

[jmigdlc99]

That few watts or less different between usb stick and ssd not going to cost you any noticeable amount of money .
if you are using 1 watt and paying 0.25$/kwh , you paying around 2.2$ for a year
if you are using 1 watt and paying 0.10$/kwh , you paying around 0.9$ for a year
SSD much faster

I see. Thanks for the charts and comparison. But have you actually tried using a USB for a mining rig? I am curious as to how stable it is, regardless of speed. Power cost-consumption can be higher in some places and when you have a lot of rigs, the savings, no matter how small, can still stack up.

USB 3.0s or those portable disks should work fine right?

[xxcsu]

That few watts or less different between usb stick and ssd not going to cost you any noticeable amount of money .
if you are using 1 watt and paying 0.25$/kwh , you paying around 2.2$ for a year
if you are using 1 watt and paying 0.10$/kwh , you paying around 0.9$ for a year
SSD much faster

I see. Thanks for the charts and comparison. But have you actually tried using a USB for a mining rig? I am curious as to how stable it is, regardless of speed. Power cost-consumption can be higher in some places and when you have a lot of rigs, the savings, no matter how small, can still stack up.

USB 3.0s or those portable disks should work fine right?

The problem is you concentrating on a few dollars electricity price different between USB drive or SSD !
Let see if you have to reboot you mining rigs , with USB boot you might need time somewhere between 90-120 second with windows 10 , with the properly configured SSD install you need 30 second or less  , so miner can start work 3-4 time faster with SSD than booting from USB ! So after each boot you can start earning money 60-90 second sooner with SSD we are talking about very very small amount of money what you can earn , or lose with the power usage of ssd or usb / booting time

Yes i tried mining from usb installed os, i dont like it all bc its much slower that ssd , time is money Yes you can run Linux , Windows from USB without any problem.
If you thinking to buy USB3 portable disks for you booting device , i just dont understand why you not using internal hdd or ssd , also external usb hdd are drawing more power that USB flash drives

[Rody81]

I have a 7 card rig running off a usb 3.0 512GB Toshiba External HDD with Windows 10 Pro and have no issues whatsoever.  My rig is 7 x GTX 1060 on Biostar BT250-BTC Pro.