SSD in external enclosure to use at Boot drive off of USB?

[ThreeDee]

I am out of SATA ports and was wondering if I could throw an SSD into an external enclosure, plug into a USB port and use it as my boot device instead of a thumb drive...? I searched the forums for this in particular and only read one post blurb on it in an unrelated thread of which gave me the idea.

 

[Chris Moore]

I recall reading about someone doing this. I don't recall them reporting back that it was a failure. Sample size of one is not conclusive though.
I have also read about a user installing a PCI-E adapter card and using it to mount a SSD for booting their system:

 

[Arwen]

@ThreeDee, one feature you might look for, is UAS / UASP, (USB Attached SCSI Protocol). In theory, this would let your SATA SSD supply SMART data to the host.

Note that I don't know if FreeNAS, (or FreeBSD), currently supports UAS/UASP, but I like to future proof my purchases.

 

[rvassar]

I ran like this for several weeks last summer when I was suffering a string of bad USB thumb drives. (See build #2 in my sig) I configured a 60Gb SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure I picked up at Fry's (local electronics vendor), and attached it to the boot pool as a mirror of my last remaining USB thumb drive. For the most part it worked, I never experienced any issue with it. I don't specifically remember trying to read SMART data from it. Understand it was something of a desperation move to stay up while I collected parts for a proper server grade build with ECC.

The SSD got shucked back out of the USB case and recycled into build #3.

 

[Evertb1]

I am out of SATA ports and was wondering if I could throw an SSD into an external enclosure, plug into a USB port and use it as my boot device instead of a thumb drive...? I searched the forums for this in particular and only read one post blurb on it in an unrelated thread of which gave me the idea.

I have a "lab" system based on a 1155 mobo. At a certain point I was short of sata ports as well and booted ESXi from eSata. The brackets and cables to do that where part of the accessories delivered with the motherboard. ESATA was showing in my BIOS as a boot option and I moved that to the top of the list. It was running OK without any problems. Still, at a certain point I installed a HBA flashed to IT mode in my rig, creating 8 more ports and I like that much better. I like to have everything internal.