The rise of data science has necessitated flexible development environments that transcend traditional hardware and administrative boundaries. Standard installations of R and RStudio require administrative privileges and specific operating system dependencies, creating barriers in locked-down educational environments, public computing labs, and secure air-gapped networks. This paper explores the architecture and utility of "R-Studio Portable"—the configuration of the R statistical environment and the RStudio IDE on removable media. We evaluate the efficacy of this setup against cloud-based alternatives (RStudio Cloud) and standard local installations, focusing on library management, version control isolation, and reproducibility. Our findings suggest that R-Studio Portable offers a unique solution for "bring your own environment" (BYOE) workflows, significantly reducing configuration overhead for workshops and field research.
This paper evaluates R-Studio Portable as a tool for on-site data recovery and digital forensic triage. Unlike installed software, portable versions leave no traces on the host system—critical for evidentiary integrity. We assess its file system support (NTFS, FAT, exFAT, HFS+, APFS, Ext2/3/4), RAID reconstruction capabilities, and recovery success rates. Results show that R-Studio Portable offers near-installed performance, with the added advantage of non‑persistence and speed in field deployments.
We will install R directly onto the USB drive.
