[PLUG-TALK] ThinkPad SD slot

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 13:15:27 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

>The computer has 240GB storage. Could I use an SD card as additional
>storage rather than replacing the internal M.2 card with a higher
>capacity one?

Yes, you certainly can use an SD card as additional storage. Linux will
see it as another drive, which you can partition and format as you see
fit - much the same as a USB drive. However, there are a few caveats:

1) SD cards come in various sizes, of which the most popular these days
is 'micro.' Many micro SD cards ship with an adapter so they can be
used in a full size slot, but in my experience the adapter adds one
more place for the connection to fail, and I've experienced that
problem more than once.

2) Read/write speed varies, and the standards for description of the
speed are confusing and complicated. A bit of study before you buy is
wise.

3) The marketplace is overflowing with SD cards that were manufactured
as 32GB cards and have been hacked to appear as 1TB cards (32 squared =
1024). Unfortunately, eBay, Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, and others offer
the hacked cards with no way for the customer to tell. And the picture
and description indicate a name brand like Kingston, SanDisk, etc. The
only way to tell is the price - a '1TB Kingston' card at a price of
$24.99 is almost surely a fraud.

I've been shopping for a 1TB card for the same reason as you - my new
laptop came with a 256GB M.2 drive, and it has an SD card slot, but
only two USB ports, and one is for power. I haven't bought one yet, and
part of the reason is not being sure of what I am getting. But I should
add that USB drives are also commonly hacked these days. I haven't seen
any M.2 drives of questionable size compared to the price, but I expect
that they will appear any day now.