Boot to External SSD worth it?

[Arkados]

I have been extremely low boot times on my 21.5in iMac, kind of a big case of buyers remorse, should've got internal SSD and more RAM for work but oh well. I currently have the 1tb standard HD and boot times are just so slow going back and forth from my MBP to this is hard. I have two questions.

1.) Is it possible to boot from an external HD on Yosemite?
2.) Is it worth it to invest in a 128/250gb External SSD to boot off of? I can't find the speed of my current hd anywhere and trying to test it results in errors, although I did find that my desktop replacement USB 3.0 HD is 180mb read & write.

 

[Weaselboy]

1. Very easy. Just hold the option key and select the external to boot from in the boot manager. Then go to System Prefs and in the Startup Disk pane select the external as the boot drive and it will form then on boot to that drive.

2. Sure is. Make sure you get a USB3 enclosure that supports UASP and it will be very fast. A Thunderbolt drive is even better, but costs more.

 

[\-V-/]

Does your iMac have USB 3 ports?

 

[Arkados]

Does your iMac have USB 3 ports?

Yep sorry i should've mentioned the model. It's a Late 2013 21.5in iMac. I was just guessing that USB 3 is slower than an internal but I guess not.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yep sorry i should've mentioned the model. It's a Late 2013 21.5in iMac. I was just guessing that USB 3 is slower than an internal but I guess not.

USB3 with a UASP enclosure is very fast. See this thread with a test of the Inatech USB enclosure that works quite well.

I have one with a SSD for fast system clones and it is very fast.