SD Card to SATA adapters

[adder]

hi all, has anyone used an SD Card to SATA adapter, eg. something like this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171511053893
im thinking of trying one for my mame cab, eg. just an 8gb SD card for windows xp, and then the roms will be on a standard sata hard drive.  do you get a decent speed increase when booting windows using one of these? any positives/negatives about them, or perhaps something better/more suitable than what i linked above?
thanks

[Generic Eric]

I have a red pcb of something like that.  TBH, I haven't tried to use it.  If you think about it, it's about the same cost as lunch at a restaurant.   Give it a shot.

[JDFan]

From the specs on a similar unit :

Supports up to 22MB/sec data transfer rate.

So best case would be 22MBs transfer rates so doubt it would yeild much speed difference over a SATA HDD -- might be worth a try with a 32GB SD card loaded with windows and your emulator\roms to use instead of a HDD (figure for the cost it wouldn't hurt to try it 

Though I'd probably go with the dual card model that would allow using 2 SD cards for just a couple pounds more - ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Port-Dual-SD-SDHC-MMC-RAID-to-SATA-Adapter-Converter-No-SD-Card-Size-Limit-/181042451170?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item2a26f892e2 )

[nitrogen_widget]

I have an ide model.
I've only used it to boot my live Linux distro and not as a regular HD.
It isn't super fast for boot times but really, how often do you boot up your cab and if you can't wait a few mins. To play your cab....

[Vigo]

Yep! I used one one my Super Nintendo a few years back. Getting windows to install was a pain, because my motherboard didn't want to read it as a primary drive, but after fiddling with it I got it installed and it has been running like a champ since. Drive speed is not super fast, and I probably would have better luck if i had gotten a motherboard that accepts USB drives and just used a flash drive, but I was on a budget and to be honest for classic emulation, it was fast and reliable for my needs.

[adder]

thanks for the responses folks, im gonna move this idea to the trashcan then

[nitrogen_widget]

thanks for the responses folks, im gonna move this idea to the trashcan then

An alternative i'm thinking about right now.

http://www.amazon.com/KingFast-2710MCJ15-032-Internal-Metallic-Silver/dp/B00MRRXSWG/ref=sr_1_24?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1415372014&sr=1-24&keywords=ssd

32GB is about the same amount of space you were looking at with an SD card.

[JDFan]

Figured I'd post this here in case you are still looking for an SSD -- Newegg has a 120GB SSD for $50 today as one of their shell shocker sales - ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0D9-0021-00005 ) Seems to have good specs @ Max Sequential Read Up to 550MB/s and Max Sequential Write Up to 500MB/s. (much faster and larger than the SD adapter and cheaper once you include the SD card price.)

[adder]

cool i think im prob gonna get an ssd then
so regarding windows xp/7 booting, does the hd speed noticeably affect booting times then, or do those pauses/delays you get when booting windows xp/7 come down to others things like the cpu, housekeeping, etc
in simple terms (if possible) ... if windows xp took say, 1 minute to boot on a regular hdd, is there an estimate u could put on the time it will load, same setup, but on a ssd?

[adder]

(below) just saw this video on youtube, i'd certainly be happy with that.
(mind you, the 'warning' from someone in the comments section is interesting, i will have to look into that..)
Comment: moeburn1 year ago
I hope you know what you're doing. XP is known to destroy SSDs, because it was written before SSDs were popular, so it doesn't know how to handle them. Windows 7 and 8 will automatically disable prefetch, superfetch, defrag, and they will change how they access and write files. XP will assume you are on a HDD. I had a 32GB SSD running on an XP laptop a few years ago. The SSD died in 3 years.

[spoot]

cool i think im prob gonna get an ssd then
so regarding windows xp/7 booting, does the hd speed noticeably affect booting times then, or do those pauses/delays you get when booting windows xp/7 come down to others things like the cpu, housekeeping, etc
in simple terms (if possible) ... if windows xp took say, 1 minute to boot on a regular hdd, is there an estimate u could put on the time it will load, same setup, but on a ssd?

SSD's kick the tar outta spinning rust.