Basically want something with decent performance and durability. Cost matters, but I’m not trying to hit rock bottom. I’m particularly wondering, is an HMB-type PCIe SSD ok combined with a SATA adapter? I think HMB is supported if your machine can use a PCIe or NVMe disk directly, but I’d be using an older Thinkpad with a 2.5" SATA slot at least for now. So I’m wondering if I’d lose a lot of performance if the SSD combo doesn’t have its own RAM buffer.
I see good deals by today’s standards for PCIe SSD’s at of all places, Office Depot.
Thanks.
Whatever is a reliable brand that fits in your budget. Since you only have a SATA connection, you’re maxed out at 600MB/s on your transfer rate. Buying a drive with faster benchmarked transfer rates won’t give you any benefits.
Thanks, I wasn’t really thinking about transfer speeds, it’s just the PCIe drives are cheaper (depending) and more re-usable if I get a newer laptop later. I think you are right though that it’s not worth messing with adapters.
I dunno if there’s such a thing as a reliable brand. The brands have reliable and unreliable models. Particularly I have the idea that I should be avoiding QLC drives, but that TLC these days is ok.
Samsung, WD, Seagate, Corsair…etc. Just not a random no-name brand. Poke around the Backblaze stats to get a good idea.