When you are doing the initial block download, any interruptions can “mess everything up”. Then you have to redo everything unless you are good at computer stuff. Even if you have unlimited home internet, you actually get charged over 1.2 TB in most cases. You don’t want to do this process more than you have to. Id recommend starting it the 2nd or 3rd day before the end of the month. 

The SSD always runs faster than any HDD and it’s not close. The benefit of having that initial download go right is the most important factor to me. I’ve also never had either HD type fail me. I don’t think there is that much rewrite going on either. You need Memory too. 

 How much memory? I've got 32gb currently installed and could bump it to probably 96gb if I want to get really silly.  

 16 is solid, dedicate 12 to the node sync 

 Easy enough. I'll bump the core count up on that VM, also. Just cuz I can and it's not doing much of anything else at the moment.