What are some good uses for spare smaller capacity SD and CF cards?

January 24, 2008 8:12 PM

What are some good uses for spare smaller capacity SD and CF cards?

I assume that I'm not the only one who has an accidental collection of smallish capacity memory cards at home gathering dust. That 32MB CF that Canon so graciously included with my camera a few years ago, plus the-oh-my-God-expensive-at-the-time 512MB SD that I had to have for my PDA in 2004, not to mention the pair of now-not-so-Ultra 256meg CF cards I had to have to feed my now-replaced DSLR... you get the picture.

I now have adequate numbers 4GB and 8GB CF and SDHC cards for use with my current crop of devices, but it'd be a waste to discard the small capacity cards, and no one seems to want them, given the price that 1GB+ cards go for on eBay. So, what are some suggestions for using these things fruitfully?

posted by Cods to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

Response by poster: Of course, I could give them to this guy...
posted by Cods at 8:16 PM on January 24, 2008

You could use them for expanding the memory of a digital frame, most accept all kinds of memory cards.
posted by Memo at 8:22 PM on January 24, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks Memo - I was aiming for brevity and omitted from my question that I'm already doing just that - my 10" digital photo frame is currently maxed out in the USB, SD & CF slots.
posted by Cods at 8:29 PM on January 24, 2008

Best answer: Get an IDE-->CF adapter and use it to build a NAS around FreeNas?
posted by Calloused_Foot at 8:35 PM on January 24, 2008

You can get MP3 players that accept CF cards. (Here's the first one I could google.) You could make each one an album.

Or you could send one to me, cos I need a little one for a webcam...
posted by pompomtom at 8:40 PM on January 24, 2008

If you don't find a use for some of the bigger ones, I'd gladly pay postage for a few of them to the USA - an ancient Nikon D1 has come into my possession, and I believe these things can't use any of the new big cards anyway.
posted by Calloused_Foot at 8:42 PM on January 24, 2008

This DIY digital picture frame from a Juicebox can be made for less than $10.
posted by glibhamdreck at 9:02 PM on January 24, 2008

I like to play tiddlywinks with my old SD cards.
posted by mphuie at 12:44 AM on January 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Freecycle them? They might not sell for much, but there might be someone out there who can use them, and it never hurts to boost your Freecycle karma.
posted by paulfreeman at 8:39 AM on January 25, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions.

For what it's worth, I've:
- used adaptors to further stuff my digital photo frame,
- used adaptors to put a second backup memory card in my camera bag,
- used an IDE adaptor and used a larger card as the boot volume for the NAS I just built (still working out the bugs in the NAS, but it's looking good), and
- bought a cheap waterproof case for an old Canon point-and-shoot camera, put one of the cards in and I've started giving it to my two year old. No, he's no Cartier Bresson yet...

None of these are particularly exciting or innovative, but at least these bits of kit aren't sitting around gathering dust any more.

Cheers!
Cods
posted by Cods at 4:03 PM on February 13, 2008