Fast, cheap USB 3.1, M.2 SSD drives

[wnorcott]

The price of  M.2 SSD thumb drives has reached a low point where they  are very usable as boot drives for PCs and laptops, without giving up anything in terms of speed.
For example I picked this up yesterday at an Amazon flash sale, for $35.  It's a 128 GB M.2 SSD drive with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 connector, in an aluminum case.   It is labeled as:  STmagic SPT31 USB 3.1 Gen 2.  Even the volume label shows up in Windows as Chinese characters (I kid you not).
The device is called "USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge" in Windows.

Here it is:


Here is its performance on my Windows PC that is a USB 3.1 Gen 1 not Gen 2 port.