I understood
@joeschmuck's comment as advising against mirroring of SSD's.
Nope, I don't think I said that or implied that. I will say IMO it's a waste of money to have mirrored SSD boot devices. SSD's are vastly more reliable than USB Flash devices.
What's the difference between two mirrored SSDs vs one and a separate backup, when there's a failure? Is mirrored easier to recover the machine back to normal?
With respect to the boot device, in my experience everyone should maintain a backup of the your configuration file in case you need to recover. Also when it comes to mirrored boot devices actually working they way most people think they work, well that generally isn't true. If your first boot device fails, generally the system hangs and it doesn't boot off the second device automatically. Sometimes you can remove the failed one (once you figure out which one that is) and then boot from the good one provided it didn't become corrupt in the process. I prefer a single boot device and if there is a problem, really it doesn't take long to create a new device and then load your configuration backup file to solve the problem. I think the idea of mirrored boot devices is good providing you have a true RAID hardware controller to handle the failures and truly utilize a mirrored device. But I'm only one of the very few people here that don't speak positively about mirrored boot devices. Of course you can use it, no harm in doing it.
I'd be interested having the link to where I can find 32GB SATA III SSD for cheaper than $49.99
There are a lot of SATA drives out there and you can use any size you desire just as long as it's 8GB or larger. Find one that has a cheap price. Here are a few from NewEgg (the place which gets most of my computer parts money)...
Silicon Power S60 60GB SSD for $35
ADATA SP550 120GB SSD for $39
I own the S60 128GB SSD and it's great for running VMs off of. It's not a power house but great value and it works.
I also own the ADATA SP550 120GB SSD, only received it 2 weeks ago and been using it in my main computer to verify no infant mortality before I make it my Sophos UTM boot drive. I've always trusted ADATA. These are of could just my experiences.
Also, I'd stay away from Patriot Blaze as it appears there are a lot of complaints that they die quickly. I'm sure it's not most of them but still there are a lot of complaints and trust me, I like Patriot USB Flash drives so I was a bit skeptical when reading the reviews. I would have purchased a Blaze SSD 2 weeks ago if the reviews were not so bad.
Any pics / further information on this? :)
I think I have some pics somewhere but I'd have to really look. I think I posted them in one of the threads where folks are showing pics of their systems.
Here is the link to the case I purchased and I do have two 120mm fans in the front of the case running at slow speed, the rear case fan is also running at slow speed. No upper fans. Also keep in mind that this case is very large for what the OP wants but I choose functionality over my desire to make a small compact system. When I do upgrade my FreeNAS system (only because something dies) I will be making a smaller system but I plan to use less hard drives as I already know my usage patterns and four 3TB drives is fine. If I can use SSDs, I might consider that but I'm looking at a few years down the road before my current drives should be replaced (fingers crossed).
Well almost time for a shower and rest up for the shoveling I will be doing in the morning. There has already been one reported death from some fella who was shoveling snow today and it was just too much strain on him. I know I'm old so it's okay to go slow. But the dog will have fun in the snow while I'm working.