Anyone run Zorin lite from USB?

I have a netbook that has a hard drive that is on it's last legs. So I installed Zorin 9 lite on a USB as the hard drive, and it runs pretty decently given the hardware limitations.

This of course will reduce the life expectancy of that USB because of the read/write cycles it will endure. Is else doing this? Are there any mitigation actions available?

There's a Puppy Linux distro that has been developed for that, it is meant to completely run from RAM, and keep the write cycles to a minimum. IIRC it writes to the USB only once every 30 minutes. I installed that distro and ran it from USB, but I prefer Zorin a lot more. I wonder if I could achieve the same with Zorin.

I can't answer that one as USBs like SSD's have a limited life-span - can't you get a replacement 2.5" drive for your dying notebook? They are pretty easy to install.

Yes, I could get a replacement HD, but it would be comparatively expensive. This little Eee PC netbook was $219 6 years ago, a new HD today would be ~$40-50. The whole machine can be purchased for about that on ebay. A 64GB USB is just $15.

I am doing some maintenance on an old file server, who's boot drive has been failing on me due to over 500 reallocated sectors, scary when your server won't boot up due to bad sectors! I was able to find a 128GB Biwin SSD drive for only 30 bucks on Newegg, they 60GB drive is even cheaper then that! SSD's are perfect for notebooks because they are the same form factor, yet 100 times faster then your old mechanical drive. I highly recommend.

I'm a little late here but thought I would just add that using an SSD in laptop/notebook uses much less power thus longer battery life and less heat due to no moving parts.
They also reduce weight! and no head crash issue when you drop it...