Terribly slow boot from USB thumb drive

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I am not sure you have the right idea. You should save your config file to a secure place. You can do that with the GUI. Then upload it after a fresh install. I have done that a couple of times when I lost my boot device (and yes, USB sticks). It's an easy and not time consuming proces. By the way: it's not a bad habit to save your config file regularly. And for sure before each system change being it hardware or software.

I am not unfamiliar with the concept!

 

[Evertb1]

I am not unfamiliar with the concept!

Glad to see that. Too often we have users that are not familiar with the concept and have way more troubles then needed. In my opinion it's one of the best FreeNAS/TrueNAS features when it comes to mitigate troubles with your boot device.

 

[Forza]

No, actually. I know they stop working after enough writes, but I know nothing of performance degradation of any significance.

Since many USB drives don't allow discards/trim, combined with other issues, they can become very very slow.

In any case. Why not dd the usb to another stick and see how that goes? Or do a fresh install, like others suggested?