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A M.2 SSD is more trouble free. I recently built a desktop computer. It uses a 6x6 inch mini-ITX motherboard. The motherboard has a CPU and 2 sticks of RAM in
by the_pwner224 6y ago
A M.2 SSD is more trouble free.
I recently built a desktop computer. It uses a 6x6 inch mini-ITX motherboard. The motherboard has a CPU and 2 sticks of RAM in it, raising the height to about 2 inches. The SSD goes inside the motherboard in the M.2 slot. Aside from this 6x6x2" unit, the only other things are:
- the gigantic graphics card - not necessary on these type of computers
- the power supply unit - standard USB unit for these
- and the CPU cooler which is a big hunk of metal sticking out and raising the total height to about 6 inches - again not necessary, maybe a tiny passive heatsink
M.2 is faster and lets you put a tiny SSD (literally just a PCB with flash chips on it) inside the thing instead of having a large external USB SSD with a cable to connect. So in the end you have a super compact computer that is basically just one PCB with another PCB inside it and maybe a tiny heatsink.
- justin66 6y agoIt's a slightly different paradigm, that's for sure. It feels technically neater to interface a little more directly with the storage hardware. I'm not sure how much I'd give up for that, though. > having a large external USB SSD with a cable to connect. The Samsung t5 and t7 SSDs I'm using with RPi 4s are about the size of a credit card (a stack of five credit cards, I guess). The tiny, very solid flirc cases for the Pis aren't much bigger, and dissipate heat beautifully. I like this solution a lot more than I anticipated I would.