Dell Optiplex and USB-SATA drive enclosure

[grunter]

I am wondering if I can reuse my Dell Optiplex 2820 desktop with a multi-disk SATA drive enclosure.  I am imagining 4 or 5 external hard drives in an enclosure with HexOS running off an SSD in the Optiplex.  The hard drive enclosure would connect to the Optiplex via a USB cable.  Is this a workable solution or do I need to use a system with "pure" SATA connectors?  I am not sure if the Optiplex contains USB3 connectors.

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

I was reading a TrueNAS forum post the other day, and the problem seemed to be that most USB to X adapters aren't built for the kind of load that these NAS operating systems have, so they tend to burn out and die more often than not.
The other potential problem with that scenario would be the multi-disk aspect; depending on how it's designed, it might only show up in the OS as one drive rather than 4-5. 

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

I'll add if you have a m.2 NVMe or normal PCIe there are cards that will divide it into multiple NVMe/SATA etc, but at a divided bandwidth in case you demand the utmost speed.

I think people call them HBA cards.

[grunter]

I would rather not get into the messy fitting of NVMe/SATA connections in this small case.  Would two or more separately powered external USB drives have any issues with HexOS? 

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

All I've heard is that USB components in general aren't built for sustained load, and may burnout and die, on USB drives specifically, the flash memory might die too. One dude said he had a graveyard pile of dead USB adaptors from when he thought he knew better.

But it'll otherwise work for some undetermined amount of time until then.

In data enters they use a cable that carries something like PCIe from the compute to a separate box with just a bunch of drives (JBOD)

So your idea is fine just not USB,, I'm not sure what's specifically available at a reasonable price though.

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

I've seen ICY Dock show up before, so this is an example of what to look for.

https://global.icydock.com/product_329.html