need SATA to SD Card adapter

[MC.Morrado]

I am looking for a SATA to SD Card adapter that can allow me to use a regular SD Card (not micro) and boot from it like a regular hard drive or SSD. I need one that comes with a plastic housing so it doesn't short out since it will most likely be laying on bare metal and short circuit something inside a retro Pentium 4 computer, mainly because I don't have the space in my office (or the money) for a 3D printer. Any suggestions?

 

Hopefully it can be almost as fast as a regular 2.5-inch SATA SSD.

[Blue4130]

28 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

I am looking for a SATA to SD Card adapter that can allow me to use a regular SD Card (not micro) and boot from it like a regular hard drive or SSD. I need one that comes with a plastic housing so it doesn't short out since it will most likely be laying on bare metal and short circuit something inside a retro Pentium 4 computer, mainly because I don't have the space in my office (or the money) for a 3D printer. Any suggestions?

 

Hopefully it can be almost as fast as a regular 2.5-inch SATA SSD.

https://www.amazon.com/sata-sd-adapter/s?k=sata+to+sd+adapter

 First amazon search. Plenty of options.

[SpookyCitrus]

Is there a reason you're going the SD card as a boot device route over just purchasing an inexpensive sata SSD?

 

An SD card will not be as fast as a sata SSD, unless you buy a quality high performance SD card and those are usually more expensive than a basic sata SSD. If you're looking at using a cheapo SD card, don't expect it to be fast. 

[cmndr]

Seconding the "just buy an SSD" suggestion. If the adapter is $20... you can buy a SATA SSD for around $20 these days. It'll almost surely be faster and more reliable. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/256gb-ssd/s?k=256gb+ssd

[MC.Morrado]

10 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Seconding the "just buy an SSD" suggestion. If the adapter is $20... you can buy a SATA SSD for around $20 these days. It'll almost surely be faster and more reliable. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/256gb-ssd/s?k=256gb+ssd

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

42 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

 

All very well, but that means you wont be getting:

3 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

Hopefully it can be almost as fast as a regular 2.5-inch SATA SSD.

 

Using an SD card is great for really old computers that pre-date page/swap files.  So what OS you plan to run will have a huge impact here, you'd need something specifically designed to work around a more limited IO and writes.

 

 

[MC.Morrado]

9 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

All very well, but that means you wont be getting:

 

Using an SD card is great for really old computers that pre-date page/swap files.  So what OS you plan to run will have a huge impact here, you'd need something specifically designed to work around a more limited IO and writes.

 

 

Mostly FreeBSD and NetBSD

[mariushm]

Get a 4 / 8 / 16 GB  IDE / SATA SSDs ... search for SATA DOM devices "disk on module" , they're made with SLC or MLC flash memory chips and have reasonably long endurance.

SD cards are not as reliable and aren't designed for random sector read, but more for continuous transfers, the access times and read speeds when reading small files will be horrible.

 

random ebay search results

 

44 to 40 pin + power ide adapter : https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Adapter-Laptop-Desktop-Converter/dp/B07ZGHZJMM/

 

$10 for   sata-ide converter, put sata drive in a ide system :  https://www.ebay.com/itm/205406954985

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135621992826  - <$10 44 pin IDE SATA SSD 16 GB - you will need a 44 pin to 40/80 pin IDE + power adapter cable (link above)

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225172478304 - 2 GB Apacher IDE SDD (44 pin) (adapter needed like the above model)

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405294173984 - 15$ 8GB Apacer IDE SSD (44 pin)

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/201594169581 - ~30$  -  8 GB Apacer IDE SDD (44 pin)

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224707987705 - 33$ for 128 GB  IDE  2.5" SSD  (new chinese made)

 

sata dom  : 

 

4 gb innodisk :  https://www.ebay.com/itm/295526618370

 

9$ for  8 GB sata dom : https://www.ebay.com/itm/293724488453

10$ for 8 GB innodisk : https://www.ebay.com/itm/297093584519

 

16$ for 64 GB sata dom : https://www.ebay.com/itm/305177076865

 

 

[cmndr]

15 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

 

 

I'm fully guilty of creating things that are "not ideal" for my own use. I have my own thread asking for a suggested thumb drive to store an OS on because I want to keep internal m.2 nvme ports free for SSD use on a NAS. 

 

 

microSD -> SATA is asking for data corruption and lower speed if used for OS purposes, especially on an older OS. There's also not much benefit to using this vs just going with USB since... in all likelihood the controller that does communication is designed assuming it'll communicate over USB. (most newer cards will use the "SD Bus" - I don't know how it compares to USB, SATA or PCIe but I'll generally assume the cheap controller isn't specced to go too far beyond USB3 in terms of latency and bandwidth is limited by the card)

You won't get TRIM in all likelihood, which might not be an issue for something like TRUENAS if you move logging off of the drive, disable swap and have the drive specced to 10-50x the space you need. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing)


If we go down SUPER pedantic rabbit holes... the newest SD card express standard uses PCIe 3.0 x1 + nvme and that'll just be... fast (at least for what it is).