I sourced a 16GB Optane in the 2242 form for $20, but if you get a full size adapter the 2280 Optane is less than $5 on eBay for a 16GB Optane drive that will run the heavy Raspbian image with plenty of room and swap.

david@liqueur:~ $ df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/nvme0n1p2 13G 4.8G 7.3G 40% /

david@liqueur:~ $ swapon -s

Filename Type Size Used Priority

/var/swap file 204784 0 -2

Sure the adapter introduce a cost, but even a used Optane drive is going to have better reliability, in addition to the mentioned performance, than a new SDcard; so pay $5.