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What's on your "Everyday Carry" USB stick?

Just picked up a 128GB USB A/C stick that can go on my keyring. What are some things I should put on it to have access to at all times?

I already have self hosted services accessible over my VPN, so this would be for when I can’t access that.

I’m thinking at least Ventoy and some common ISOs, then I’m not sure what else.

MonkderDritte ,

Two partitions for a live linux, the second for home and other data. It can come in handy, if you’re on linux.

solidgrue ,
@solidgrue@lemmy.world avatar

I do this. A Debian Live image and an encrypted LVM for home. Came in handy a few times for the odd system rescue

nossaquesapao ,

I used to leave some usb device with multiple bootable isos lying round my table, but I found out that every time I needed something, none of them would serve me, and I had to download something else, so I don’t do that anymore and just download and write isos as I need them. Oh, but I still keep an old 4gb usb stick with some random distro on it, just in case my pc becomes unbootable and I have to do some maintenance/data rescue.

JackbyDev ,

Sameeee

ProgrammingSocks ,

Pretty boring. School textbooks and portableapps with a few of my essentials - Firefox, vim, GIMP, and some others I’m forgetting right now.

Magister ,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

Of course Ventoy and multiples ISO, but also a full copy of SDIO, it’s maybe 30-40GB, but absolutely essential for Windows

gencha ,

Before Google Drive and Syncthing I relied on such a USB device. Today, no matter what I put on the stick, it’s outdated or entirely not what I need when I need something.

Having any stick on hand, and being able to flash an image from your phone, that’s nice

fratermus ,
@fratermus@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

What’s on your “Everyday Carry” USB stick?

  • scans of my DL and other licenses
  • scan of my DD214
  • system rescue ISO
  • a TEMP dir with random things I need in the short term
  • portable apps versions of putty, WinSCP, etc.
rand_alpha19 ,

I don't really carry one anymore, but the one I have at my desk has Ventoy and LMDE on it for when I need to mess with something requiring my system to be down or modify my OS partition. I don't really do much on other PCs except when I have to help my wife with something.

When I was working at my last job I carried 2-3 with a ton of database backups and proprietary software and firmware files for clients' automation systems. Kinda don't miss it at all, but it sure made me feel important, lol.

Jumuta ,

ventoy with some live image, gparted, and arch iso

monovergent ,

A metal 128 GB USB on my keychain next to the U2F key

16 GB Ventoy partition with:

  • Clonezilla (‘deploying’ my system image and backups)
  • Mint Debian Edition (everything needed to test and recover my Debian systems)
  • Debian netinstall
  • Various manuals and reference documents
  • Portable CrystalDiskInfo and VeraCrypt for Windows
  • Dumping grounds for files that I intended to transfer between machines, particularly the XP retro gaming rig
  • An optimistic IF-FOUND.TXT
  • KeePass
  • Previously Windows, until once upon a time, I booted into WinRE via Ventoy, got confused between X:, C:, and whatever else, and proceeded to nuke my USB instead of another disk. The Windows installer lived on its own USB happily ever after.

And a LUKS encrypted partition in the remaining space with more documents and a backup of almost all of my photos.

nichtburningturtle ,
@nichtburningturtle@feddit.org avatar

I’ve got 3 usb’s on my keychain. One for ventoi, one for tails and one for random storage.

Cyv_ ,

Yeah main thing is Ventoy and images for windows 10 and 11. I also have some basic tools, and some portable versions of some games I like (OoT, Warcraft 3, etc).

Asudox ,
@Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

Some useful files I might need someday (of course encrypted), bootable linux rescue distro and of course tailsos just in case.

rotopenguin ,
@rotopenguin@infosec.pub avatar

I have a Debian 12 install on a 5GB partition (btrfs compression is magic), and the rest is exfat. It has rEFInd as the bootloader, should be pretty good at detecting and running other OSes with bootloader problems.

JoeKrogan ,
@JoeKrogan@lemmy.world avatar

Tails and another for storing random stuff, like a copy of documents when travelling.

just_another_person , (edited )

The only solid reason I can think carry anything on a USB stick is if you’re going to be in an area without Internet. If you’re in an IT role where you’re interacting with end-user machines all the time, then the answer would obviously be some sort of live environment to troubleshoot or fix issues. In that case, load a Ventoy partition with a few different images, and and be done with it I guess.

If you’re thinking like a Prepper or whatever, keep a copy of Wikipedia, and some survival books maybe? Maps? That’s all I can think of. If you’re going this far, better carry a backpack with portable solar panels, a large battery, and a lifejacket. None of this matters when you don’t have food and water though, so…

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ce915395-fd73-4401-8801-72d1aff87db2.png

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