Hello, it’s me again. I read a lot about how unreliable micro SD cards are if you use your RPi to selfhost some stuff. Now I wanted to ask if some of you might have recommendations for cheap but reliable external SSDs. I did some research on Amazon but there are some brands I never heard before (Intenso, SSK, Netac, etc.) and don’t know if they can be trusted.

  • theorangeninjaOPEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    But an M.2 is usually more expensive than a normal 2.5" SSD. Is it better to boot from a M.2 HAT than from USB?

    • rbesfe@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      M.2 would technically be the best performance available, but realistically I don’t think you’d notice the difference over a USB SSD. Maybe a few extra seconds on boot.

      • theorangeninjaOPEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        Okay and what about longevity of the drives? That should just depend on the number of writes, right?

        • Cole@midwest.socialEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          I’m not sure what kind of money you want to spend? The M2 Hat is ~$14 USD and a 2242 NVME SSD can be had for ~$30-$40 USD since you don’t care as much about performance.

          The USB to SATA adapter is going to run ~$10 USD and the SATA SSD drives are going to start ~$20 USD are go up from there depending on size, performance, etc.

          If size of storage is an issue, the SATA SSD is probably the better route. I believe the NVME would be better performance since it utilizes the bus on the Pi more fully.

          I would guess that for the money, most M2 drives and SATA SSD drives are going to be similar lifespans