• On TV.com: Sexy summer bodies photo gallery
July 2, 2008 3:08 PM PDT

Make your own solid-state hard drive and save

by Dong Ngo

The CR2T has the same form factor as a regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

No moving parts, shock resistant, and incredibly short seek time are some of many benefits you get from a solid-state hard drive. However, for now, the price for a SSD is so incredibly high that calling "insanely priced" might not be an over statement. It's hard to justify (or to afford for that matter) spending about $1,000 for only 64GB when you can pay about 10 percent of that cost for a regular 200GB laptop hard drive.

So how about making our own SSD?

Sans Digital just released the CR2T CompactFlash card enclosure that might make this possible. The enclosure has the same form factor and works the same as a regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive. It can hold two CF cards and can even configure them in either RAID 1 (mirroring) or nRAID (spanning), where the two CF cards are combined into one.

The enclosure can take two CF cards in RAID 1 or nRAID configuration.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

The enclosure costs $99, and a 32GB CF card costs about $150 that would make your homemade SSD's price about $400, which is about half the price of regular 64GB SSD. Of course, you can choose to use smaller size CF cards for much cheaper.

However, there's a catch. Currently the fastest CF card only offers the speed of 40MB per second, which is very fast compared with ATA hard drives, but it is still slower than SATA SSDs (up to 100MB per second or more). So the CR2T is probably not a good choice to be the main hard drive for your laptop. However, it can make a great secondary hard drive or be turned into an external hard drive where data integrity is the main concern.

Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong.
Recent posts from Crave
Poll: Why don't you have an iPod or MP3 player?
Oppo's affordabe high-end Blu-ray player is here
iPhone 3GS jailbreak, 'purplera1n,' hits Web
Apple patents point to haptics, fingerprints, RFID
Friday Poll: We the ppl--imagining a digital 1776
Gadgettes 144: The Childhood Nostalgia Episode
Duet D8 is no iPhone clone
Rocking out with stereo Bluetooth
Add a Comment (Log in or register) (4 Comments)
  • prev
  • 1
  • next
by epsilonparadox July 2, 2008 3:43 PM PDT
This would be an inexpensive way to get an SSD but now OCZ is coming out with Core Series where a 64GB SSD will be priced at $259.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ocz-technology-announces-core-series/story.aspx?guid={92621F37-10E4-43B4-B823-53DE282CE70E}&dist=msr_20
Reply to this comment
by stsax July 2, 2008 4:46 PM PDT
Give it a little time and it will all be replaced by blazing fast flash RAM.
by stsax July 2, 2008 4:49 PM PDT
Give it a little time and we will all be using terabytes of flashRAM and it will blow it all away. Also , "I Think" , in the near future we may all have dumb terminals with tons of flash and all software will reside in cyber space somewhere. Just a thought mind you.
-Sid
Reply to this comment
by TechnologyNews March 11, 2009 2:46 AM PDT
this is good info.


http://www.zahipedia.com
Reply to this comment
(4 Comments)
  • prev
  • 1
  • next
advertisement

About Crave

The name says it all. Crave is our blog about gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff. If you would like to contact Crave with a tip or comment, please write to: crave@cnet.com

Add this feed to your online news reader

Crave topics

Making sense of Windows 7 upgrades

faq The basics and the fine print on Microsoft's options for those eyeing the next operating system from Redmond.
• Full Windows 7 coverage

Road Trip 2009: Big Sky Country

CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman takes his car full of gadgets to the Rockies and the Great Plains in search of tech, science, nature, and more.
• America's Fortress: Cheyenne Mountain

Inside CNET News

Scroll Left Scroll Right