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I want to buy an external drive to run SSD, without touching my Windows HDD. However, this is a little investment so I am wondering if you can answer my few questions. Here are my laptop specs:

  • Intel Core i3
  • 6GB RAM
  • 1 To HDD (Windows 10)
  • No graphic card

Honestly, it runs very slowly, 5-10 minutes to startup, ~1 minute to start Microsoft Word. This is not the best laptop but this is not the question here. The questions are:

  1. Is a HDD sufficient or it will run slowly as on Windows.
  2. Can all external SSD run Ubuntu, or I have to buy one in particular
  3. I am sure 256 GB is sufficient but are you sure it is? I would use Ubuntu time to time, for programming, and I won’t store any personnal data or whatever except code.

I have already tried Dual Boot and it was good but I want another drive for Ubuntu now (don’t try to change my mind)

Thank you for your answers!

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I am not sure why do want external SSD, If you are talking about additional drive, I will recommend you to go with 256GB SSD and install Windows/Ubuntu on it, Performance will increase a lot. I regularly upgrade older system with ssd and use HDD as storage. Go for it.

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  • That is a great idea! But I’ll soon buy a new laptop with a SSD already installed... That’s why I want an external SSD. And once I’ll get this new laptop, I’ll still want to have my Windows drive and my Ubuntu drive. So I think I have no choice... – valfur03 Apr 18 '20 at 9:13
  • Buy Internal 2.5" SSD now for desktop, In case you decided to discard your desktop you can remove SSD put it in an enclosure and use it as external drive. – vrs Apr 18 '20 at 9:43
  • yeah I think I’ll do that. But I have one last question then. If I use it as external (still Ubuntu on it), can I use it on multiple laptops/PC? – valfur03 Apr 18 '20 at 9:57
  • not recommended, most of the time it wont work, some links are there for installation. again it is complicated – vrs Apr 18 '20 at 12:35
  • mmh... I wanted an external SSD for that... Are you sure there is no way? – valfur03 Apr 18 '20 at 12:51
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Is buying a SSD to run Ubuntu a good deal? It is an excellent idea; I have six Ubuntu PCs and all were upgraded from HDD to SSD with no problem at all, and Ubuntu's performance is much better with the SSD.

If an SSD will work in Windows without any special Windows driver on that machine, it will work in Ubuntu. 50 GB would be adequate.

To resolve the low performance issue, I would also review my motherboard manual to see if mixing the memory sizes is likely to cause a problem, for 6 GB means you have a 4 GB and a 2 GB memory module. Since they are different, perhaps their specs are also different, which can also limit performance.

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    So you are telling me that all SSD will work to run Ubuntu? And is it working better from HDD to SDD or not that much? – valfur03 Apr 17 '20 at 15:35
  • Yes, that's absolutely right. – K7AAY Apr 28 '20 at 22:32

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