Card performance

For the last 10 years, or more, I've been using a micro SD card as a solid state drive (SSD) on my Windows machines. This is a data drive, not a boot drive. All my current web and software development runs off an adapted card, on a mount point folder path. The adapter hasn’t given any reliability or speed issues.

I first tried this on my ASUS EP121 EEE Slate. It's internal storage is a 64 GB SSD, so it's a bit tight for space. I bought a SanDisk micro SD card, but found it quite slow. I swapped it for an older Lexar XC 1, 64 GB, card and it’s been perfect. It was plugged directly into the EP121, and later a Surface Pro 2. I used it with a SanDisk adapter on my MSI Wind u200, and the same adapter is now in my HP Envy Desktop.

The card / adapter isn’t a bottleneck, it just hasn’t been a problem. Yesterday I dug out a CF to PCMCIA adapter to copy a stack of backup files, from one of my Librettos, to a SanDisk Extreme III card. That also worked fine. I’ve never had issues with adapters. All my card failures have been with the card plugged in directly.

Every web site I look at tells me that micro SD cards are electrically identical to SD cards. i.e. it’s the same electrical interface with a different physical connection; the adapter should is a passive device. If I was using micro cards for photography then I’d buy an adapter for every card and leave the card permanently in the adapter. The micro cards are just too small and easy to lose.

20-MAY-2020 👈 Top of page 👉 26-MAY-2020

Find me coding on GitHub, networking on LinkedIn, answering questions on Stack Exchange and hanging out on twitter.