Not OP, but by booting M1 from external thunderbolt nvme you lose less than 50% of benchmark disk throughput (3GB/s is still ridiculously fast), can buy 8TB drive for less than 1k, plus can boot it on another M1 mac if something happens.
If there was "max mem, min disk" model, would def get that.
Interesting. You know I bought one of those USB 3 port expanders from TEMU and it is excellent! (I know, TEMU right? But it was so cheap!)
I could 3d print a couple of brackets and probably lodge a bigger SSD or the smaller form factor eMMC I think and pack it all into a little package one just plugs in. The port extender is currently shaped such that it fits right under the Air tilting it nicely for general use.
The Air only has external USB... still, I don't need to boot from it. The internal one can continue to do that. Storage is storage for most tasks.
