# Running Instant Rails from USB key **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 2, 2006, 7:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-instant-rails-from-usb-key/62287 "2006-06-02T07:47:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 7:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-instant-rails-from-usb-key/62287/1 "2006-06-02T07:47:19Z")
Hello everyone, It’s a particularly slow Friday afternoon here, so time to try stuff out… I’ve just installed Instant Rails on a USB key, thinking it would be a great way of showing off Rails in general, giving a progress update to customers, trying out ideas, and generally all the other benefits that come from having a completely portable environment. However, the 168Mb of files that make up my Instant Rails (with extra gems) is consuming 750Mb of space on my USB key. The reason is simple enough; the USB is formatted as FAT32, and having lots of small files stored on a FAT32 partition is a great way to burn your disc space quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to reformat the USB key as anything other than FAT or FAT32, and I’m not sure I’d want to because FAT/FAT32 is really the only format that everything can read and write to with no problems. I can go through Instant Rails, remove things and see how small I can get the disc footprint under FAT32, but hopefully someone’s already done been down this path and can offer a few suggestions. I’m reluctant to chop out things such as ActionMailer that I’m not using yet, because I might well want to play around with it (say) tomorrow. Any ideas/comments/suggestions? Thanks in advance Dave M. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 12:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-instant-rails-from-usb-key/62287/2 "2006-06-02T12:21:14Z")
A bit painstaking, maybe, but you could try and find any cases where there are a few small files which can be combined into one. I’ve never actually investigated how much ruby will let you do this, but there must be a few cases where it’s possible. You could also try not using Instant Rails, and setting it all up yourself. Maybe that’ll work. Probably be a bit quicker too… InstantRails was painfully slow on my machine when using the generators and stuff. I don’t expect anyone’s done any work into reducing the filesizes, because generally speaking, file size isn’t a problem anymore. But I hope these suggestions help. -Nathan ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-instant-rails-from-usb-key/62287/3 "2006-06-02T13:39:29Z")
I found TrueCrypt ([www.truecrypt.org](http://www.truecrypt.org)) which solves a whole bunch of problems for me. It’s an open source disk encryption tool for Windows and Linux. Using it, I’ve been able to: - build an “encryption file” on the USB key - mount it as a virtual disk - format it as NTFS - load Instant Rails onto it Because it’s a NTFS partition, all of Instant Rails now fits in 220Mb of space, which is a lot nicer. Plus, the partition is encrypted, so all my mega-million dollar ideas are safe ;-\> Possibly not that important for my Rails stuff, but I can keep other personal files on the same USB key without worrying about losing it. Better yet, I can create multiple “encryption files” and have my personal files secured with one password, and my Rails stuff secured with another password. Plus, it gives me a secure, relatively idiot-proof way to move files around between sites without using Gmail. At this early stage, TrueCrypt looks like an absolutely brilliant tool - if you haven’t checked it out, it’s definitely worth a look. Regards Dave M. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/running-instant-rails-from-usb-key/62287/4 "2006-06-02T17:23:46Z")
You could try deleteing a lot of the documentation files that come with Ruby and the various RubyGems that are installed. There are loots of small html and image files here. Search the “ruby” subdirectory for other subdirs named “doc” and then delete those. Curt