Best use of 32GB SSD?

[Kylemaul]

Wondering what to do with it? Make it bootable media for catastrophic failure? Pseudo RAM disk? Make it the boot partition? ________? Pros and cons of any of these versus the others?
This is more of a curiosity query than anything else. Actual hardware is LITEONIT LMT-32L3M (LWFA).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Except for 512GB Samsung 970 Pros (which I use for boot drives), I won't use any SSDs smaller than 4TB (and I won't buy any smaller than 8TB anymore. I have a few retired 500GB SSDs and a couple of also retired 2TB SSDs collecting dust when I'm not using one or two for experiments that could ruin one of my larger SSDs.

You could always get an enclosure to put your 32GB SSd into to make it into an external USB drive although that would be rather bulky and expensive considering how inexpensive really tiny USB flash drives that size, and even larger, are available for less than the enclosure (I am considering that for my 2TB SSDs. Another possibility is to use it for swap space in your computer if you have a free SATA port.

You may just have to accept a drive that small and old just needs to be permanently retired and discarded

[OunceofCommonSense]

Perhaps a Timeshift drive for backups

[JerryF]

Perhaps a Timeshift drive for backups

+1

[ajgreeny]

What other disks do you have?
32G could make a reasonably sized root partition if you have another larger disk for /home or data.

[Kylemaul]

Thanks to everyone so far for the suggestions! =]
This is the closest so far as to what I've been thinking of using it for:

What other disks do you have?
32G could make a reasonably sized root partition if you have another larger disk for /home or data.

I've got beaucoup other drive space (total ~10TBs) so this seems like a fantastic use for it. I have heard that SSDs have limited usage, though, so it might be prudent to have a backup of some sort for if/when it fails, idk?. This PC is, in fact, being used as a HTPC/gaming rig, even though it is an older rig. "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid." =]]

[JerryF]

What other disks do you have?
32G could make a reasonably sized root partition if you have another larger disk for /home or data.

I have a "spare" chromebook that I converted to a Linux Mint machine.

It has an internal 32 GB eMMC. It's set up for root and home. I use it for light use.

Attached, I have a 128 GB for Timeshift and data backup.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I have heard that SSDs have limited usage, though, so it might be prudent to have a backup of some sort for if/when it fails, idk?...

Very prudent!

32GB may be a bit small for a boot drive, even if you place /home on another drive. To maximize the write life an SSD, you should use no more than 75-80% of its capacity. That's only 24-25GB. My laptop's boot drive uses 49.5GB (and I don't keep any data in /home). How much room you will need will depend on your usage.

[motoryzen]

make it a ventoy drive that you could put whatever OS you want into it and it be the swiss army knife of OS aka Distro fast installation drives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWXMGpV8_Dc start at 1:10 ish.

[Kylemaul]

What other disks do you have?
32G could make a reasonably sized root partition if you have another larger disk for /home or data.

So, what would this entail? Is it as simple as moving(copying) files and updating the boot loader file?

[ajgreeny]

Is the 32G disk an internal sata drive or some other typè? I assumed it is already in your machine and if so what is it used for at present?

You would not just copy the OS files across to the drive to use it as a new root partition hut would have to install in the usual way choosing manual partitioning, pointing root to the 32G disk partition and depending on the current install, using your current /home partition as the new OS home, ensuring you don't format that as you install.

[Kylemaul]

Is the 32G disk an internal sata drive or some other typè? I assumed it is already in your machine and if so what is it used for at present?

The system is a hand-me-down from my Dad's engineering firm when he retired. It's a Dell 8500XPS desktop pc with an upgraded (for it's day, ) PNY nVidia GEForce GTX750Ti. The LITEONIT SSD was a bit of a surprise---I think it may have been part of some type of RAID setup? I really have no idea. I also presume it was OE from Dell, although what its original purpose was is guesswork. Came as a complete surprise to me when I installed Linux on it, which does seem to see it as an internal SATA. I was able to determine that there was no data on it, and successfully formatted it as ext4.

[Kylemaul]

make it a ventoy drive that you could put whatever OS you want into it and it be the swiss army knife of OS aka Distro fast installation drives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWXMGpV8_Dc start at 1:10 ish.

This is also along the lines of keeping this SSD useful, although, if I understand the video correctly, only for as much as 31-32GB of OS image files--so like maybe 1 or 2 'low rent' ISOs?

[Moem]

if I understand the video correctly, only for as much as 31-32GB of OS image files--so like maybe 1 or 2 'low rent' ISOs?

Current Linux Mint isos are < 3GB.

[Kylemaul]

Current Linux Mint isos are < 3GB.

My age is getting the better of me. Somehow my brain transposed GB as MB...

[lsemmens]

Be careful with installing the OS on smaller drives, you, potentially, can create more problems for yourself. The best I would use it for is as a data storage disk, but ONLY if I had the spare ports on the MOBO. A 32Gb Usb stick would be cheaper than a case for that drive.

[Kylemaul]

Be careful with installing the OS on smaller drives, you, potentially, can create more problems for yourself.

Just ran into this very issue. =o
Freed up some space...but now I'm terrified to reboot.

[Kylemaul]

Ended up going with motoryzen's suggestion. This worked out to be quite advantageous for me, as I was having trouble with a 2nd install of Cinnamon.
I'd mark this as SOLVED, but there are many good ideas, approaches, and suggestions here--feels wrong to single out a single one to mark as the 'best' or 'right' answer...