Digital Home Thoughts: Create Your Very Own SSD

"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."

This article is absolutely fascinating. I went in expecting to simply find out about how to make my own SSD but I found out so much more. I was clearly under the wrong impression that all SSDs would out-perform regular disc based hard drives. Furthermore, in your DIY SSD solution, the speed of your solution is only as fast as the slowest component; so even if you invest in a high speed CF card, the SATA interface adapter needs to be a high performance device as well. Finally, I found out that when buying a notebook with an SSD solution, paying the high premium doesn't necessarily buy you high performance. I still confident I would go for an SSD but I think I will be better prepared now.