Amidst the ongoing RAM & storage apocalypses, Mad Max-esque scenes are unsurprisingly developing, with the eMMC recycling project by [Chase Fournier] from a pair of XBox One S (‘XBone’) mainboards being just one more example. These mainboards come equipped with a 5 GB eMMC chip installed, alongside 8 GB of DDR3.
Removing the eMMC chips isn’t that complicated and after some reballing fun the chips were both installed on a carrier board with a Norelsys NS1081 controller IC. This provides a USB 3.0 interface and can connect to up to four SD or eMMC memories, with here just two channels used.
Although the eMMC testing device didn’t seem too happy with either chip, after mounting them on the PCB the controller could be programmed and saw both eMMC packages for a grand total of 10 GB storage.
Sequential read performance in CrystalDiskMark was about 140 MB/s while write performance was about 64 MB/s, which is zippy enough for smaller files. Not that you can store more than 10 GB on this USB drive anyway.
Turning the DDR3 ICs on the mainboard into proper DIMM or SODIMM sticks would also be an idea, as even such older memory tech keeps ramping up in demand. As for the XBone X variant with its 12 of GDDR5, that’s probably a harder proposition to repurpose, but recycling old consoles suddenly has become a lot more exciting.
Return recycling to memory to sell on eBay
With the ongoing chip shortage, I guess, we will see more of these “cannibalizations”. If a device has Flash chip on it, it will be taken off and reused.
I just hope it will happen only to hardware that would otherwise go to recycling anyway.
“Turning the DDR3 ICs on the mainboard into proper DIMM or SODIMM sticks would also be an idea, as even such older memory tech keeps ramping up in demand. ”
I’m amused because when I mentioned the sticks I have, I was told it was a museum piece.
There is a market for DDR3 but it’s rather specialised. Mostly in the industrial sector, where they are trying to kept ageing control systems running and retro computing ‘enthusiasts’.
Nope.
DDR3 demand is going up as we speak.
As is the supporting hardware. CPUs, Motherboards, etc.
The price of an old Xeon E5-2678v3 has more than doubled between January and June 2026, because it is an oddball chip with both a DDR3 and DDR4 memory controller.
There are several OEM CPUs of this era that were made for hyper scalers like Microsoft and Amazon that had tons of DDR3 on hand and wanted to keep using it.
The CPUs were sold to the secondary market years ago, used, and in many cases retired. And now they are being unretired.
I literally just built a NAS for a client a few weeks ago with DDR3 because it was more affordable to spec out a system with 512GB DDR3 and then spend the money on more HDDs.
10GB is hardly worth it these days.
“these days” regresses daily. 10 GB might become the new norm if storage chips aren’t brought under control price wise.
There will be plenty of stuff on the second user market once this ‘AI’ nonsense comes to a crashing halt.
A lot of financial advisers, etc. are warning their clients not to invest in ‘AI’ tech companies, or their suppliers, as they are expecting it to all end in tears in somewhere between 2-5 years.
I had a letter from my pension fund assuring me that they were reducing their exposure in their in this area and would not be investing any further until some stability had returned to the market.
Imagine actually believing AI will “crash”
It’s going to crash, but it won’t be gone. Eventually investors will get fed up with the fact that theres no return on their money and no actual results showing. Sure AI looks cool and all, but if it’s not actually causing a real difference in the market (and it’s not), it won’t really last much longer. It’s not a question of if but when. What I’m more worried about is going to be the economy after that. It’ll be chaos for a bit afterward…
I wish you were right but I’m afraid AI will be here when we are either extinct or a very low population, that have learned to hide and adapt. I believe it will be our demise…..
Unfortunately no investment will be “safe” when the bubble bursts.
We have never had an economic situation where so much money has been invested, nor so broadly applied.
The only thing we can hope for is a slow deflation, managed by a sane regulatory body.
Even that will be painful, but at least there will be food on people’s tables.
I hate to doom and gloom over this. And I would LOVE to be wrong.
But I just don’t see how we get away from this without having the deepest and longest global depression ever seen.
This is some Fall of Rome stuff…
32GB USB Flash drives are about $10.
I can’t wrap my head around destroying two X-Boxes just to get a 10G USB Flash drive.
I mean, sure, hacks aren’t always about practicality but this seems extreme to me even for that.
xbox pcb without matching cd drive pcb (crypto signed) is garbage already