14 Making GNS3 Portable
GNS3 is designed for large corporations running it on a server. These corporations build their entire infrastructure on the GNS3 platform and analyze its performance before deploying the real-world configurations. We are using GNS3 on a desktop, which limits the number of devices we can deploy in our environment. However, it also makes the GNS3 environment portable. You might have multiple environments (home desktop, school desktop, and laptop) that you want to move your GNS3 environment between. This chapter will explain how to make your GNS3 environment portable.
Learning Objectives
- Successfully migrate your GNS3 environment to a portable drive
- Successfully migrate your GNS3 environment to your local system.
Prerequisites
Deliverables
- None – this is for learners who want to make their GNS3 environment portable
Resources
- https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/usb-3-0-speed.html
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/client-tools/change-default-removal-policy-external-storage-media
- https://usbdeview.com/
Contributors and Testers
TBD
Phase I – Selecting a portable drive.
With the advent of USB 3.0, users can run virtual machines (VM) right off their thumb drive at the same speed as a hard drive. However, many sellers of thumb drives advertise ‘possible speeds’ instead of actual speeds. We tested six different thumb drives and found only one that was fast enough to run virtual machines on the drive. This phase covers how to test a thumb drive.
- The first thing to do is to check your system parameters:
- Starting with Windows 10, the default policy for removing USB drives has been set to “quick remove.” If you need to improve your USB performance, you can change the policy to “better performance”. However, do not forget to use the Windows “Safely Remove Hardware” process, or all your drive data could be lost! Windows default media removal policy | Microsoft Learn
- Use the most current drivers for your portable storage device
- Convert the file system on the portable drive to NTFS
- Starting with Windows 10, the default policy for removing USB drives has been set to “quick remove.” If you need to improve your USB performance, you can change the policy to “better performance”. However, do not forget to use the Windows “Safely Remove Hardware” process, or all your drive data could be lost! Windows default media removal policy | Microsoft Learn
- Check the speed of your device using a USB speed tester such as MiniTool Partition Wizard https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/usb-3-0-speed.html or https://usbdeview.com/
- The benchmark MUST BE at least 300 MBps for reading chunks of 128MB of data to achieve non-laggy speeds.
Figure 2 – USB speed test using USBDeview 
Figure 3 – USB speed test using Partition Wizard - Dr. Heath Van Horn uses an M2 drive in a USB3 cage. This setup offers ample storage, but is limited by the maximum USB 3 speeds. However, unlike some other USB drives, the M2 Drive consistently exceeds the 300 Mbps threshold.
Figure 4 – m2 in a USB 3.0 cage speedtest using USBDeview - We don’t recommend products. However, we have noticed that sticking with well-known name brands and spending a little bit more (e.g., $30 instead of $20), it is likely that the device will yield actual USB 3.0 drive speeds. Ensure that you test the drive to verify its functionality.
Phase 2 – Setting up the portable device to run GNS3
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