Can I connect an external SSD to a minimal iMac?

Question

iMac

Can I connect an external SSD to a 2017 minimal iMac? This means that the speed is comparable to an internal SSD. In order to save money and the subsequent iterative update.

Answer 1

old aimaks, in the absence of a desire to mess with their disassembly, worked quite well with a system installed on an external SSD via a SATA-USB3 tail from aliexpress.
even Thunderbolt2 is fast enough to not be a bottleneck for SSD...