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That is confusing.
Have to confess that I never looked into this. Main PC still has an SATA SSD in classic 2.5" hard drive form factor for the OS and some big 3.5" HDDs for data storage.

I ditched mechanical storage 10 years ago, and never looked back. Just wish SSD prices would start falling, they've been stagnant for the past 5-ish years. A 2TB Gen 3 NVMe drive should be about $100 USD by now... It's ridiculous.

Can't do without HDDs at the moment: Price is a point here. For 10+ years we hear "rotating HDDs are fully obsolete in two years" and "further increasing HDD density isn't possible anymore". Didn't yet happen.
24TB of SSD storage in the PC would exceed my budget… and then at least two additional backup devices of the same size are needed.

Another thing: For older OS like Windows XP SSDs aren't optimal.

Robust backup concept requires different kinds of storage vulnerable/resistant to different kinds of threats. That makes it unlikely for all fail at the same time. My most important data is stored on SSD, HDD and high quality optical discs (archival grade CDs/DVDs and HTL type BDs as well as M-DISC sometimes)

I can't possibly fathom having that much data hoarding to require so much (slow) storage. My system has maybe a total of 3TB in it, tops, among all my SSDs, and it's more than enough. I also don't want to lose that much data if a drive dies, so I'd rather have many smaller drives than a couple large ones.

Data amount increased exponentially and still increases. I started with 360KB floppy disks and couldn't think of ever going beyond the overly expensive vast 500MB HDD. Then came "interactive CD-ROMs" and MP3 compression followed by uncompressed audio. Game CDs. Game DVDs. Video DVD ripping, later BDs with almost 50GB each,…

For storage of huge files still 3.5” HDDs are unmatched in price. Speed is secondary.

As for the data loss of a failed drive: I don’t want to ever lose ANY data. At least three copies for EVRYTHING, minimum one off-site. The most important and irreplaceable stuff (about 1% of the data volume in my case) needs more copies and spreading across different types of storage.

Anything with streaming and/or cloud is a big no-no for me.
Each to their own.

mSATA was abandoned basically as soon as m.2 came out and as a result mSATA drives are rare and expensive, and you can't get them in larger sizes. Sucks for someone with older hardware, like the laptop I'm on right now. So, I agree 100%.

Sadly mSATA had a lot of potential, and is smaller than M.2 SATA by a long shot. I bought a new laptop in 2019, and instead of an NVMe slot, it was M.2 SATA. The box vaguely stated it had an M.2 drive, but failed to mention the type on the box. It just leads to deceptive marketing, and I'm tired of being duped. If anyone tries passing off a M.2 SATA drive to me as NVMe again, they're getting a fist to the balls.

@Jayro m.2 comes in multiple sizes, though. The smallest is far smaller than mSATA, it's actually smaller than a SD card, and is the size the Steam Deck uses, although it isn't very common.

Smaller isn't necessarily better, either. The width of a m.2 SSD is close to the width of the chips, so you can make efficient use of the space and fill the entire board with chips, and make it shorter/longer depending on how many chips you want/what kind of performance you're targeting.

mSATA is kind of an oddball size, and in all the pictures I've seen only half the space is actually utilized for 2 NAND chips, with the controller taking up a small part of the other half, because there isn't enough space for 2 more NAND chips and I guess it has to be an even number. So much wasted space.

Compared with m.2, the standard size has 75% of the space used by NAND chips if it's a single sided one, if it's double sided you still only need one controller so the rear side is all NAND. It was clearly designed specifically to maximize efficient use of space.

Forgot about DRAM, that takes up some of the space too. But m.2 is still clearly more efficient use of space.

......???????
what. what the hell even happens if you put a sata drive in an NVMe slot or vice versa? isn't it like thunderbolt 3 and USB-C where both are just compatible??

It either releases the magic smoke, or just does nothing.