yeah, i see what you mean.
Good thing matrix support so many protocol now, officially or not

for knowing this (controller of ssds) it depend if it's an actual full controller (like HDD have) or a weird one that can be faked by just flashing a custom firmware, like USB stick have. Not knowledgeable in SSDs but given how some brand/model are similar to USB NAND drive, i wouldn't be surprised.

Just knowing if the controller can be flashed or not can lead you to know if it has a chance to be fake, thus leading you closer to know the "real" controller. just my two cents

I remember a reputable USB drive brand, let's say the name is not like usual ones. They had very fragile quartz crystal inside their USB stick, so fragile it can break by just letting it plugged in too long...

I was using said USB stick (it was 100gb~ or so) as a main drive under some low end linux distro. It was fast, but also fast in breaking itself (only worked for 4 months).
I can still see the firmware/see the brand name using lsusb, but nothing else work.

I never had SSDs except that one old 16GB SSD on an old notebook (asus). When i heard back then that they had a clear time when they can break/or stop working (forgot the name of that limit or the reason behind it) i never thought of buying one.

Plus the price vs size range being less beneficial, except for speed compared to HDD kinda made it look meh to me

the two thing that prevented from getting tapes, even though they can be lot cheaper than drives are:

- mold/dust
- their reader/writer, which have a compatibility hell (different model, etc) and their price (usually around 1k-10k) and harder to find cheap compared to tape

I mean, the algorithm part already kinda exist, eg: what github used for their archiving project, they had a pdf which detailed the process/method they used to store git repo on tape

and for the hardware part well, there is some guide for making your own/salvaging your own reader/writer for VHS tape (some modding community too which could help)