I use a m.2 Sata ssd in an adapter to normal Sata and then a Sata to ide adapter attached to that, but that's on a pentium 3.
In any case with your 486 the main issue with modern storage will be disk size limits, afaik a 250gb drive won't work without either drive overlay software, and xt-ide bios, or an ide/sata adapter that can talk to large drives (if you've got pci). Or going scsi.

486 and hard drive size limit.

In my collection most stuff still has spinning rust as main hard drive, but I try to put in a CF adapter when there is an IDE channel free.

I do have a SD adapter, but I'm hardly using it. It always feels like SD cards will burn up much sooner then CF cards.

On some systems I also have SCSI but that's hardly modern: they use 9 or 18GB drives at max.

Eventually all pre-win95 stuff may end up using CF and post-win95 with SATA stuff.

Using that SD2IDE adapter in 2 different systems, which works fine so far.
PhilsComputerLab also did a video on those.

Not sure if this is helpful, but I prefer CF cards and DOMs.
I tend to avoid SD cards and SATA HDDs, because they require active adapters in order to be usable on IDE/PATA.

Which sadly are often of not so high quality.
The ones that I had gotten in the past often had bad soldering, ran hot or were slow.

By comparison, a half decent CF card can do IDE natively and has a lower latency than SD+another adapter.

When it comes to data storage, I never go the cheap route.
Well, if possible. If I'm in financial trouble, I'm open to use cheap solutions *temporarily*. 😀

For long term storage and it's backup, don't go cheap.
I use a modern computer with enough space to store everything I like, and I backup that disk every now and then.
Any CF card reader will do to transfer data from modern to old.

I consider all storage on vintage hardware lost before it's in use. Even though an industrial CF may be reliable, the ancient controller may not be. Or the mobo. Or whatever.

I'm one of those people that have plenty old HDDs (especially ones with smaller capacity), but old drives can be tricky to work with (and some of them are just obnoxiously loud). Virtually all of those are second hand or scavenged from dumped rigs etc. I ended up buying a lot of IDE 2.5in laptop drives with an equal amount of adapters. The drives are 20GB but it's enough to suffice for my intended purposes.
I'm not sure what kinda of solution I would go for these days. I'll probably not bother getting more retro storage unless it's interesting to me for some other purpose.

And I take the same route as Waterbeestje regarding storage on my retro rigs: I consider all data that I leave on it (like benchmark results and savegames etc) as expendable/'lost' and the stuff I really want to backup for whatever reason, I backup on either a different medium or on one of my main rigs).
I have used SATA2IDE adapters in the past but tbf I'm not really convinced this is the way to go. This was before SSDs though, so things might be different now.

I use a CF-IDE adapter as they're cheap and passive devices so less to go wrong

SD2IDE adapters are good for 486s. They have a lower latency on small seeks and the SD cards are cheap and everywhere.
Internally, most SD2IDE devices are capped at 25MB/s, but that's usually not a limit you reach on most 486 systems.
I did have some compatibility issues getting my SD2IDE adapter to talk to some early 486 EIDE controllers. Your mileage may vary.

I like CF's if I am going to be moving the devices between computers.
The base adapter is cheaper and they are more rugged.
I have not had compatibility issues with CFs and early EIDE controllers.
Got to watch out for 5v vs 3.3v compatibility occasionally.

40 Pin DOM devices are nice and perform well, but can be more expensive and are more difficult to move around.
Had some compatibility issues with the hyperdisk controller on some old EIDE controllers
Can be tough to run them faster than UDMA2/ATA33 without modding or getting a 40 female -40 female cable.
DOMs are are designed to hold tightly in industrial systems and can break brittle IDE sockets if you are careless. I ended up removing the latches off the sides of my DOMs.

If I'm going for max performance, I look at 16GB mSata SSD's devices w/ an adapter. Unlike the current generation of GPU's, they are dirt cheap these days.

If you are running win98, consider setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in your system.ini to reduce some of the swap file chatter.

Never had any bad luck with CF-IDE adapters.

Don't buy the cheap no name ones on eBay, same with CF cards. Get an adapter from a decent brand like StarTech and a card from a trusted manufacture like SanDisk.

Iv had a noname CF adapter die early, but my two StarTech's seem to be doing allright.

douglar wrote on 2021-03-08, 20:25:

If I'm going for max performance, I look at 16GB mSata SSD's devices w/ an adapter. Unlike the current generation of GPU's, they are dirt cheap these days.

I only had a few left and you prompted me to take a look on eBay.

Just picked up a lot of 10 for $25

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-03-09, 03:42:

I only had a few left and you prompted me to take a look on eBay.

Just picked up a lot of 10 for $25

What adapter do you use for your mini SSD's ?

486 machine on the my work running with a 512 MB Kingston DOM. This Intel-brand machine controlling the old but actual laboratory equipment (96-well plate photometer) with DOS software.

douglar wrote on 2021-03-09, 04:08:

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-03-09, 03:42:

I only had a few left and you prompted me to take a look on eBay.

Just picked up a lot of 10 for $25

What adapter do you use for your mini SSD's ?

I mostly use them in laptops. Last time I ordered some, it was the Chinese ones with the white case.

For a desktop, you can use one of those and then a 44-pin to 40-pin + power adapter as well.