USB Installation Media Creation (Rufus)

Why the minimum is now 64GB (as of 6/28/2026): Yes, I bumped the recommended minimum to 64GB. A lot of this is due to Ubuntu and their track record for ballooning ISO sizes whenever they run into packaging constraints and trying for the "ISO size champion" every release, they have treated size limits as suggestions for years. This is only only an Ubuntu issue, other distros do not have this problem. Other distros will continue to fit on 16GB USB drives for several more years before they no longer fit. The other issues is stores like Walmart—good luck finding name-brand 32GB drives on shelves anymore. 32GB drives are also prime targets for online counterfeits. Even if the capacity is real, many use bottom-tier B-stock flash that fails under the high-write stress of flashing an ISO. If buying where you buy groceries, stick to 64GB+. At specialized shops like Micro Center or Best Buy, 32GB is still a viable purchase. I did not want to do this, but I had no choice. Rant over.

If you need to write an ISO to a USB flash drive, this guide will show you how to use Rufus. Because most modern computers lack internal optical drives, USB booting is the fastest and most practical way to install or run an operating system.

TL;DR: When buying new, purchase a 64GB+ drive (USB3 preferred; USB2 "works" but will be slower). IF YOUR BUDGET IS THIN, YOU ARE ALWAYS BETTER OFF FORMATTING AN OLD 16-32GB DRIVE THAT CAN BE ERASED IF YOU ARE CHOOSING BETWEEN NO-NAME JUNK OR A KNOWN-NAME BRAND!

While you can still use good name brand 16GB USB drives and they still work, they are being pushed into obsolescence. The margins for formatting overhead, device drivers, system files, packages, firmware, and especially persistence partitions can easily overwhelm a smaller drive. 8GB is simply risky today - some Linux installers like Ubuntu already pushed 8GB into the danger zone with releases like 26.04 LTS (6.07GB). Many new 16GB drives are private label or use B stock NAND; these are not recommended as they can have issues being used as bootable drives and often aren't cheap enough to absorb the risk. 32GB drives are fine for the forseeable future, but you need to be careful where you buy them.

AMAZON WARNING: If you buy the drive for this on Amazon and it has issues out of the box, it is probably counterfeit - get rid of it and buy another one in person.

• Important: OSes without explicit USB boot support are not guaranteed to work. While the risk is low with the right tools, I cannot guarantee anything. You are on your own if there are unforeseen issues with ancient operating systems.
• Used drives should ideally be erased before formatting in Rufus.
• This guide is currently at Revision 3. If you are using Rufus 2.x, refer to this archive of the previous version.