I am not quite ready to switch to a GNU/Linux yet, but I have live booted Linux Mint Xfce yesterday, with most things working, but much worse for launching times, etc. Would it be any different if I installed it on my eMMC drive? Since they are both based on NAND flash memory, I am clueless about it.
Probably depends on the speed of your usb pen and port. If you know for a fact that everything USB side is 3.1, USB will be faster. Otherwise eMMC will be faster. If everything is USB3.1 gen 2, USB looks to be around 3x as fast. Gen 1 is about 25% faster.
What I found in a quick search:
If any part of the USB chain is 2 or lower, it’s slower.