SD to Sata/IDE?

[ric1287]

I am looking into designing a HTPC and was wondering if there was such thing as an adapter to convert an SD flash card to SATA or IDE. Then you could install windows on this drive and use aa larger drive for storage. Anyone know?

 

[anthrax]

Umm, not a good idea to use flash memory for O/S drive mainly due to the fact that flash memory can only make a certain number of read/writes before its fails.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: anthrax
Umm, not a good idea to use flash memory for O/S drive mainly due to the fact that flash memory can only make a certain number of read/writes before its fails.

He's correct. You'll definitely want to use hard drives. Well, unless you want to start learning Linux. With Linux, you can put the entire OS on a DVD, and boot it from the DVD-Rom drive. Knoppix works well, I've use it.

 

[Aluvus]

The usual method is actually to use Compact Flash; adapters are available to use Compact Flash drives as regular ATA devices, and are fairly cheap since Compact Flash uses a communication protocol very much like ATA.

The above cautions apply; flash media is not built for frequent rewrite operations, and will not last long with something like Windows' page file on it. The people that do these kinds of things generally use Linux (something that doesn't take up much space, like Damn Small Linux), which perhaps says as much about the sort of people that would go to the trouble as it does about the practical aspects of such an undertaking.