External SSDs are faster than HDDs, but if you need cost-effective backups or larger capacities, a hard drive may be a better ...
Without the controller and external DRAM, your SSD would lose its bragging rights ...
Should you choose a smaller SSD for speed or a larger HDD for storage space? The answer depends on what you prioritize.
Setting up an SSD isn't hard, or at least it shouldn't be. Depending on whether you have a SATA drive, your SSD's storage controller would be in AHCI mode; for M.2 drives, it would be NVMe. However, ...
Offloading downloads and VMs to a scratch SATA SSD and disabling Fast Startup preserves write cycles and delays replacement.
A cluttered NVMe labored under constant housekeeping, garbage collection and hidden writes that silently age NAND cells.