Could not agree more. Having an appropriate backup regime is unfortunately one of those things that a lot of people implement after their first data loss.
I use two thunderbolt NVME SSD raids (16TB each) the first one accommodates Time Machine Backups of my MBP. The second houses weekly copies of the current project I am working on plus my music, photography, software archives and most importantly a full archive of all the projects I have worked on in the past. The NVME SSD raids have the benefit of a small footprint compared to a hard disk raid storage solution.
I have multiple Mx Apple silicon Mac mini’s and you never want to buy 1 with only 8g memory. Swapping to a ssd will wear out the ssd. For the life of any solid state storage device: ssd, nvme, etc… they can only write so many times before wearing them out, and swapping is the worst. I know, I worked for 1 of the largest hd/solid state storage manufacturers in the world developing enterprise systems using SS technologies. Also, opt for the 512g ssd when buying the new Mac’s, much faster than the 256g ssd.
