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.

  • glitching@lemmy.ml
    0·
    8 days ago

    those things were designed to run off mechanical drives. so whatever you fit it with will be screaming fast. the bottlenecks you’re concerned with arise with workstation-class machines with fully implemented PCI lanes and such, which are pretty rare in laptops. HMBs also require a beefier CPU as all that buffering introduces overhead; not noticeable on a 6-core Ryzen, noticeable on a dual-core decade-old i5.

    summarum: whatever SATA SSD you fit it with is more than adequate. obviously, don’t go with no-name “brands”. also, save yourself the bother and don’t dick around with adapters, just fit a regular SATA 2.5" SSD in there.