I'm going to try converting my Quickbooks laptop drive into a virtual disk file with Win11 Disk2VHD program.  I've had good luck with the WD Passport HDD and can pick up a 1TB for <$150.

But any pros or cons for SSDs?  IRRC, they may fail more frequently. I'd trade longevity for speed.

^{Your old PC can keep running long after the hardware is gone
https://www.makeuseof.com/keep-old-pc-running-after-hardware-fails/}

You've got it. HDD is slower, longer-lasting, and cheaper. But annoying if you are dealing with large files.

My current photo editing workflow is:
Upload photos to a new folder on the main OS NVME SSD
Edit and post photos
Dump the folder onto an 8tb external HHD
Keep the microSD card as backup

>But annoying if you are dealing with large files.

If I were just copying QBks I don't think it would be a large enough file to worry about. But the whole vdisk and trying to load and process the QB program on that external drive might seriously bog it down.

I haven't had spinning platters for internal or external in... I don't know. Several years.

Unless cost matters or it has to be huge (like my friend's RAID array with 1000 movies), I go solid state for everything