Can I Run Linux from an External Hard Drive?

Running Linux from an external hard drive works about the same as from an internal drive. Just keep in mind that if your external drive is slower or using a slow USB connection, that could affect performance. You might see longer boot times and slower application launches compared to an internal setup.

Setting it up isn’t much different from installing on an internal drive, but watch out! Some systems may remove the Linux boot entry if you boot without the external drive plugged in. You might want to consider installing a fallback bootloader like rEFInd for smoother operation.

Just a heads up, if you're using a regular hard drive, you will definitely notice a performance drop compared to SSDs. If you’re serious about using Linux, you might want to look into getting an SSD for the external setup.

More or less, yes! I ran Linux off an external drive for a few months. The speed wasn’t as fast as with an internal SSD, but it was still pretty reliable. Just make sure to use as fast a connection as you can.

I’ve used an external NVMe drive in a USB-C enclosure, and it works great! USB 3.0 is also decent, but the speed can drop with older drives, especially traditional SATA ones. Overall, the performance is often better than running it in a VM, but just be cautious about potential slowdowns.