Solid state disks (SSDs) are a flash-based memory storage device that carries an insane price premium in the current market. They will usually cost $600 to $1,000 as an upgrade from the manufacturer or computer parts store, making them outside the price range of many consumers. A new cheaper (slightly slower) option is available thanks to low-cost, high-capacity flash cards. This option is using a cheap compact flash to SATA adapter, and purchasing a moderately fast memory card that would fill your storage needs.
For this review I aimed to keep the price less than $100 just to show how affordable this option could be.
Addonics CF To SATA HDD Adapter
- Enable Compact Flash (CFI/II) or Micro DriveTM to be used like ordinary 2.5" SATA hard drive
- Mounts directly onto notebook 2.5" SATA connector
- CF Card can be the primary bootable device containing the OS and applications.
- Transparent to the operating system and does not require any drivers
- Supports DMA and Ultra DMA modes (only on flash media card with such features).
- Compatible with DOS, Windows 3.1, NT4, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac, Linux
- Price $30 (available here)
Trancend 4GB 266x Compact Flash
- Capacity 4GB
- Speed 266X (40MB/sec Max)
- Support IDE PIO mode 6, Ultra DMA mode 4
- Compliant with the CF4.0 specification
- Built-in hardware ECC technology
- Built-in ATA interface for easy Plug and Play interoperability
- Lower power consumption
- Price $60
Kingston 4GB 133x Compact Flash
- Speed - 25MB/sec. read, 20MB/sec. write
- Standardized - complies with CompactFlash Association specification standards
- Economical - autosleep mode preserves system battery life
- Price $40 (Free after rebate)
Sandisk Ultra II 512MB Compact Flash
- Minimum of 10MB/second sequential read speed for ultra-fast image viewing and data transfer
- Minimum 9MB/second sequential write speed lets you capture large image files faster
- Low power consumption for longer battery life
- Price Free, old flash laying around
Setup
One nice perk of these types of devices is they don't require any drivers to work on any system. There are a few requirements though; the system must have SATA, and the compact flash card must support DMA modes. Some older flash cards will have problems, but since 4GB to 16GB flash cards didn't economically exist a few years ago, this should not be a problem.
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