Fun thread. I've got a Pentium 60 MHz that I've had running both Win 95 SE2 and OS/2 Warp. Hard drive let go after one too many crackling popcorn sounding seeks. I went a different route and got a bootable PCI CompactFlash card reader and a lot of old Lexar 2 GB CF cards. The kind where you can swap out the card from the rear of the case. So in theory I'll be able to swap out images for Win95, NT, OS/2 etc. Still haven't gotten around to setting it up yet.
Never thought of using an IDE to SATA adaptor, forgot about those.
I've definitely seen cases of SSD bottlenecking by CPU or other interface limitations over the years, usually when upgrading aging hardware.
I still regret getting rid of my Pentium Pro 200 MHz workstation. 64 MB of RAM it had and I had set it up running Windows 2000
I've got a Toshiba laptop that was my grandfathers and subsequently my first hand me down laptop. Whopping 25 Mhz. First thing I did when I got it was run to local store and get a PCMCIA 3com modem so I could get online. I'e love to get it back online someday. I bought a PCMCIA ethernet card for it years ago that had drivers on a floppy but then I heard the belt inside the floppy drive snap
It actually isn't that hard to replace capacitors etc on some of this older hardware don't let people scare you off! Also despite all the talks of things that "should have failed by now" I have tons of 30 yr old electronics that still work just fine thanks very much. I've always associated cap failure with poor design/component selection or storage conditions than an age issue. I've had electronics only a few yrs old fail from cap issues
I will admit to using DOSBox from time to time now.
As I've been getting more into software dev as a hobby I'd like to mess with writing some software. I think it would be pretty funny to write or port something modern and anachronistic onto these old hardware. I found there's still a supported version of java runtime for Win95:
https://www.java.com/en/download/help/win95.html
Can't believe there is still a support page for that !