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I have an old Dell Optiplex 745 SFF that I want to use as a Plex server. It has USB 2.0 ports, one available SATA connection, and one PCIe slot (x16). I'd like to use the SATA connection for a 2 TB HDD to hold my media.
I could run Ubuntu from a flash drive in one of the USB 2.0 ports, but that's slow. I can install an NVME SSD, on a PCIe adapter, in the PCIe slot, but that's not bootable.

Is there a way to install and run Ubuntu on the NVME, but use the USB stick to boot it?

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  • Why not install parts of the system on the HDD (so it boots from that HDD the system was designed to use) and other parts from the SSD (for speed). 745SFF's tended to run rather warm and weren't designed for constant use (esp. now given they're rather old) so it may not have a long life in your intended usage anyway.
    – guiverc
    Dec 30, 2022 at 4:38
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    Ubuntu will run in RAM if there is enough of it. RAM is much faster than SSD. Reading and writing to USB is what will be slow. I answered a similar question yesterday about booting from USB, see: askubuntu.com/a/1447779/43926 Dec 30, 2022 at 8:01

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