SDcard to IDE/SATA?

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    • September 20, 2026 at 7:39 pm #493
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      Watchful
      Podcaster

      Has anyone tried SDcard to IDE or SATA adapters? I ask because I’m not a fan a disc swapping and I’ve been having trouble reusing my old drives for retro builds. DOS 6 is the worst with its 2GB limit, and I have a lot of smaller SDcards collecting dust. Even Win98 has been a struggle since mounted ISOs feel sluggish to me. Perhaps also due to being on the same HDD and large partitions which FAT32 can take a while to seek.

      Hoping I can make SDcards work in DOS 6, Win 98, and XP.

    • September 21, 2026 at 3:40 am #495
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      DJ_HiP
      Moderator

      Reading around it appears most recommend CF to IDE and using industrial CF cards at that.

      Plenty of posts on Vogons showing SD-to-IDE adaptors work, but speeds can vary widely.

      The other useful part of CF is plenty of PCI-Bracket mounted CF-to-IDE adaptors exist, so swapping the CF card is very accessible.

    • October 2, 2026 at 8:43 am #542
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      Martli
      Participant

      I think the advantage of CF cards over SD cards is that they’re pin-for-pin the same as IDE drives so the conversion is relatively straightforward, it’s just that CF cards are more expensive than SD cards.

      I feel like the general consensus (for both CF and SD cards) is that they’re fine for DOS and Win 9x, but for XP you’ll get performance issues and are better off going for an SSD.

      I’ve personally had great success using a CF to IDE adapter for both DOS and Win95, and a Sata2IDE adapter for an SSD in windows 98 (plus Sata SSD connected to SATA port but running in legacy mode on a newer mobo).

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