I’m not 100% sure but this might also depend which OS you are running on your pi. Did change from SD card to SSD few years back for my home assistant setup (now running with a mini pc) at the time I went for a geekpi adapter (can’t recall exact model).

Try a quick ducduck search “sata adapter #yourOS#” and see if a list come up. Here is one for HA (but surely more models are compatible than the ones listed here) https://community.home-assistant.io/t/working-usb-enclosures-and-adapters-with-hassos/212763

Edit: as for SSD, I went for Samsung EVO model

Sidenote: all SSD will be more reliable than a sd card because they are less sensitive to rewrite counts

I think it is best to first print a temp tower then some retraction test where you would stick with same temperature and variates distance and speed. You can use tools here to make it simple. https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html

If after that, you still have stringing, best is to test a new spool (or dry your spool) as too much humidity in pla will give you stringing whatever settings you use