# [FreeNAS] USB flashdrive as root device



## bugboy (Feb 5, 2010)

I am planning to use FreeNAS and use a RAID-Z array to hold the actual data. Because I have no drive left for the system-drive I consider using a USB flashdrive. The root fs will stay well under 4GB, so that is no issue. I only wonder if it will perform. Or is it better to add some RAM and use a RAM-disk as root fs?


----------



## mav@ (Feb 5, 2010)

I was using SDHC card as main file system in my laptop's built-in PCI SD/MMC card reader for some time. It was usable and even faster then HDD on some workloads. The only problem was BIOS' inability to boot from card, so I had to boot kernel from other source.


----------

