Data Hoarder

Hello, after seeing the (stupid) trend of games having SSD listed as requirement, allegedly bc devs got lazier and decided to optimize them less and less, I have been thinking about getting a external SSD for playing games just in case while they are cheaper.

I acquired a Crucial 1TB SSD around 4 years ago and it worked fine; but I didn't use it much farther than managing a 1 TB library of installed mods for Skyrim for 1-2 years. I didn't have much problem with it, except that in some circumstances I think it "stopped responding" while transferring data. I never knew why; but it almost always happened when I took it with me to my workplace to leave it doing processes that take hours while I was working. At home it was fine.

So now I am considering the Crucial 2TB disks which are under 100$ in Amazon. I have read mixed things recently about Sandisk SSDs, so I am unsure if I should trust them.

For HDDs, I have always used WD disks and so far, none of them has broken. One of my disks even has a SMART usage time higher than 3 years plugged to my computer; but Idk how good their SSDs are.

Do you have any view or recommendation about SSD models/manufacturers?

Thanks in advance.

BTW, long ago I read that after failure, SSD data is usually not as recoverable as with HDDs. So I always keep a copy of the SSD content in a HDD. Is that true? Or I am being paranoid?