use with M1 MacBook Pro

I am interested in getting Acronis - just got an M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

I had been using Carbon Copy Cloner with a 2017 iMac (and SUperDUper before that) but when I moved to the MacBook the external HDDs I had been using for backing up kept failing - the folks at CCC said that an external SSD would be needed due to the plethora of small files being backed up and - guessing here - the required formatting of the external drive to APFS - (I guess too much for the transfer speed of the HDD).

So, my question is - do I need to use a SSD to make backups? I do have Time Machine runing on an OWC RAID I previously used for my image files (now they are all on a 2TB SSD)

Also, I like the idea of having a bootable clone - but again need to understand the hardware required.

TIA for any guidance you can give