A solid state storage card includes flash storage devices for storing user data and a serial peripheral interface (SPI) flash storage storing a first set of machine instructions. The solid state card also includes a plurality of processor cores coupled to the flash storage devices and SPI flash storage device. Each processor includes storage for storage of a second set of machine instructions configured to cause one of the processor cores to respond to access requests for the flash storage devices. Upon power-up, no storage in the solid state card contains any of the second set of machine instructions. When executed by one of the processor cores, the first set of machine instructions causes the processor core to initiate a download of the second set of instructions from a device external to the solid state card.