I think this is an area where SD is actually fairly suitable - not for storing the actual OS for the console, but certainly for storing data files. They're most

I think this is an area where SD is actually fairly suitable - not for storing the actual OS for the console, but certainly for storing data files. They're mostly read only other than saves, which should be miniscule amounts of I/O, and ease of removal so you can copy more games on is very important. I don't see any issue with using SD or microSD for that usecase? edit: I don't think I/O performance for reads should be a big issue either - for most retro games you're going to be able to have the whole ROM in memory as even a 16 or 32MB GBA ROM is still tiny! For PS1 and newer, microSD read speeds are certainly faster than CD/DVD read speeds, too?