tl;dr: Using a cheap NVMe drive with a USB enclosure is the best value for overall performance, but can take up a bit of extra space. Using an Arcanite flash d

tl;dr: Using a cheap NVMe drive with a USB enclosure is the best value for overall performance, but can take up a bit of extra space. Using an Arcanite flash drive might be best if you just need to copy large files infrequently or for media playback (but not for heavy writes, as it overheats, or for general computing—it's as slow for 4K random IO as a microSD card). Using run-of-the-mill cheap flash drives (I tested a SanDisk Ultra Fit and SanDisk Ultra Flair) is a terrible option, as they perform even worse than most name-brand microSD cards! Finally, I was blown away by the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX... but it's $55, and fairly large, making it a little more expensive (though still smaller) than similar-performing external NVMe and SSD drives.