I'm going to replace my old 2004 vintage desktop PC soon and I have an idea of what I want to do, I'm just not sure if it's possible or realistic.

In the time since I built the old PC it has slowly become less used as a PC and more as a file server, so I figured I'd build a small file server which could also function as a router/DHCP/DNS/whatever box.

The idea is to base it on an Atom system. I have my eye on the Intel D510MO for the moment. This supports 2 SATA disks, and I'd prefer to dedicate those to data storage. I'd like to install Ubuntu Server or maybe Debian on a 8/16GB USB flash drive. I have seen plenty of tutorials on how to perform an installation from a USB drive, but I can't seem to find any info on actually booting and running the OS from USB flash. Is this even possible? Is it practical?

This box will mostly be used for:

• Making backups of mine and my wife's notebooks via LAN. Will use SMB or NFS for this.
• Digital media storage, which will be accessed by a Mede8er box with no storage of its own. I will most likely use NFS for this.