Combining memory cards to build a homemade solid-state drive is a project that has been floating around the web for some years. The extraordinary advance of flash memory and the launch of more robust controllers has given rise to products that accept a large number of cards at the same time, but is it worth following that path? If we take the latest video from Linus Tech Tips as a reference, we are not so sure...
Now, I don't want to seem negative about it. There are multiple applications for memory cards converted into solid-state drives, and the first that comes to mind is replacing damaged hard drives in retro computers. An SD or CompactFlash card has more than enough capacity to take the place of those old and slow IDE drives, while the simplicity of operating systems like MS-DOS means they don't feel as much pressure when reading and writing data. Another factor to consider is noise, or rather, its absence. If the priority is to install silent storage, solid state is an excellent option.
The Reality Check
However, after watching the video published by Linus Tech Tips, we can say with some certainty that its limitations are too important to consider frequent use on modern platforms. The unit itself, which has ten sockets compatible with microSD cards, has an average price of 25 dollars on eBay, 65 percent of the value of a normal SSD on Amazon (and that's without looking at cheaper Chinese models). The controller is responsible for combining and configuring the cards in RAID 0 mode, which in principle sounds very promising, but once random reads and writes come into play, performance falls apart. On the sequential side, the unit reports 220 megabytes per second of reading, in line with a SATA2 interface.
25 dollars for the adapter and about 9 euros for each SD card put us on par with a Samsung 850 EVO of 250 gigabytes that basically annihilates all competition. Granted, the use of ten SD cards is not mandatory, but I insist that it is not a very practical alternative. On the other hand, if you enjoy a good experiment and there is budget flexibility, then... why not?
