Do It Yourself: Half the Storage, Only 18% More!

Today, I have a computer component that I actually like, quite a bit, but I’ll never get one, nor will anyone else, with a modest number of exceptions. This morning, I read on Engadget, about what they were calling a “Do It Yourself SSD Adapter.” Basically, it’s a board with slots for four SD cards. The adapter then plugs into any free IDE cable you have in your rig, and it blesses you with speedy startup, that is associated with running an SSD.
I actually really like this idea; it gives you your own scalable SSD solution. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite do everything right. The only problem I thought of at first is, that having to buy the cards separately might tend to rack up the price. This is the least of my worries now. In fact, SD cards can be found on the cheap. So, the device supports up to 4 cards at 2GB each, for a total of 8GB of possible storage.

Unfortunately, the SD to SSD, isn’t without its quirks. First of all, it supports only 2 or 4 cards at a time. So, you have to buy at least two at a time, which will add to the price and limit your options for how you intend to expand. Next, it doesn’t support SDHC, which from what I know, comes in 4GB and 8GB flavors, which could have increased possible storage from 8GB to 32GB.

While I honestly do like the concept, it has one major drawback, and that is its price. A quick search on Newegg turns up 2GB SD cards for as low as $15, so that’d be $60 for 8GB of storage for your SSD Adapter. Well, next you have factor in the price of the adapter, $258.50. Yes, $258.50. So, that totals $318.50 for an 8GB SSD. Well, Engadget also reported, last month, that Ritek will be releasing 16GB SSDs for an expected $270. Which is, quite the deal, for double the storage, I must say.