You mentioned an external SSD and a microSD, but there's a nice inbetween option of using a thumb drive, like Samsung's FIT drives[1] where it's just a nub stic

You mentioned an external SSD and a microSD, but there's a nice inbetween option of using a thumb drive, like Samsung's FIT drives[1] where it's just a nub sticking out of the USB port. You get better performance than an SD card, something that can arguably get "SSD-like" performance in short bursts, and you don't have to jury-rig an external SSD to the Pi. Doesn't offer the same durability as a full-size SSD but might be good enough (and cheap enough to try IMO). There's also endurance microSDs made for constant writing -- and I bought one for my current Pi 4 -- but I don't have enough experience with those to say whether it solves the Pi corruption issues. [1] https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/usb-flash-drives/usb-3-1-flash-drive-fit-plus-256gb-muf-256ab-am/ https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/usb-flas...