New 5 gig microdrives?

[chuckindetroit]

Just wondering if anyone has had experience with the Seagate 5 gig microdrives. They are found in some Rio Carbon mp3 players. The entire units can be had on Ebay for under $200. A friend at work brought a bare drive to me today but we don't have a pc card or usb adapter handy to play with it.

[evilenglishman]

i would be frightened of it crashing with 800 photos on it. I'll stick to 1gb as my limit per card.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I've got some Hitachi 4 GB drives.. they are very nice for the 1D mkII raw files..

[DReb-MO]

i would be frightened of it crashing with 800 photos on it. I'll stick to 1gb as my limit per card.

Lay your fears to rest. They are very stable and I have seen NOTHING in print or online to indicate they are any more or less reliable then solid state CF cards. I understand they are slower to read and write to and at high altitude some problems arise but that's about the end of the negatives. 4 or 5 gig for $200? Bring it on!

[chuckindetroit]

I have a four gig Hitachi and three 370 meg IBMs but was wondering about compatibility with these drives. Just saw them on Ebay while surfing and was unaware of their existence. If I get a chance to play with my friends 5 gig I will post results. Not sure if they are made different like the newer Muvo ones.

[aam1234]

From what I read MD's are type II which is thicker than type I like CF cards. My silly question is, how will they go/fit the same slot of type I. (don't laugh at me ok?)

[evilenglishman]

Lay your fears to rest. They are very stable and I have seen NOTHING in print or online to indicate they are any more or less reliable then solid state CF cards.

I wouldn't buy a 4gb CF card either. It's not that I don't like microdrives - its the capacity of the drive.

Imagine if you filled a card and put it in your pocket after swapping it, only to discover several hours later that you had lost it.
with a 1gb card you would be pissed off, but with a 5gb card :evil:

[MrChad]

But if you have a 5gb card do you ever need to remove it and swap to a second card? If it has a good warranty I'd buy one.

[booggerg]

Lay your fears to rest. They are very stable and I have seen NOTHING in print or online to indicate they are any more or less reliable then solid state CF cards. I understand they are slower to read and write to and at high altitude some problems arise but that's about the end of the negatives. 4 or 5 gig for $200? Bring it on!

DReb: foret whether or not there's been any proof in print or online to find support either side.. just going by common sense alone, a mechanical device will always be more susceptible to instabilities and crashes than a solid device.

[CyberDyneSystems]

It's a simple rule. As file sizes go up,. card cpacity needs to increase as well.

The "too many eggs in one basket" rule for CF cards has been bandied about since the beginning. When the first Smart Media 128 came out.. people said "too big" .. likewise.. when I first came across this forum.. many would not invest in a 512MB card.. as it was "too many images on a card if it dies" ... so they stuck with two 256MB cards.

And f course the next step were those who would never buy a 1GB card...

And on and on.

It may make one feel safer having thier images spread across multiple cards... but really unless you have images copied on two cards.. the risk of loss is the same.

In fact.. 4 cards = 4 times as likely one will fail. No?

As for MD Vs. CF,. I agree .. MD is clearly more susceptible to damage from abuse. But they really take more of a beating than you'd imagine.

[pfuller8863]

i agree, a few years down the road we will have 20GB CF cards or drives. If I can get a 4GB card at a reasonable price, bring it on. I would rather swap less often.

[pcasciola]

If I can get a 4GB card at a reasonable price, bring it on. I would rather swap less often.

Ok, here you go. $155 for 4Gb. Doesn't get much better than that.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=47559&highlight=

[ScottE]

I have been using 1 gb microdrives, but yesterday I shot a cross country ski race with a 2 gb Sandisk Extreme card.

A couple of observations.

When I finished I had about 1.2 gb of large fine jpg images on the card. If I had been using a 1 gb card I would have missed a few shots while changing cards and would have had to open the camera to change cards and put the full card in a safe place for carrying home. I am glad I did not have to do that while it was snowing out. Thse are reasons I am glad I used a larger card.

If I had been shooting RAW the 2 gb would not have been enough and it would have been handy to have something larger like a 4 or 4 gb card or microdrive.

I also noticed that the camera operated much more quickly with the Sandisk Extreme card than it ever had with a microdrive. If you need speed for a lot of shots in a short time a fast CF card has an advantage. (This advantage may not seem as significant when you compare the cost of a 4 gb CF card to a 4 or 5 gb microdrive.)

[merrrrjig]

I heard that they have moving part so they break easier, I im going to start shooting mountain biking so the camera and CF card will be moving a lot. Are they still going to be good? Or do you think it will break easier? Thank You

[ScottE]

I have used microdrives while cross country skiing, hiking and back packing with no problems. I don't think I would subject my camera and lenses to anything I would consider rough enough to damage a microdrive.

I have been fortunate to have experienced only one failure. That was with a Lexar CF card in cold weather conditions. I lost some nice shots of a moose browsing in a snow covered thicket. A microdrive worked just fine in the same conditions.

CF cards should be a little more durable than microdrives, but microdrives are not really fragile and it is just bad luck if you get a failure with either.

[evilenglishman]

It may make one feel safer having thier images spread across multiple cards... but really unless you have images copied on two cards.. the risk of loss is the same.

In fact.. 4 cards = 4 times as likely one will fail. No?


not true.
If a freak occurence were to happen it is much more likely to happen on one card and not to 4 seperate cards

[merrrrjig]

I am getting the 20D pretty soon. I will be doing a lot of burst shots. Like anywhere from 2-10 shots in a row. Should I go for a faster CF card or is it just better to go with the Micro drive?
Thanks

[evilenglishman]

i've got lexar 80x cards and they are much faster than microdrives in the 20D

[ron chappel]

From what I read MD's are type II which is thicker than type I like CF cards. My silly question is, how will they go/fit the same slot of type I. (don't laugh at me ok?)

Good question ,but there is an easy answer
All Canon DSLR's (certainly all more recent models) take both types.
Basically they make the card slot big enough for type II's but the socket is the same size on both
I guess there is a slight taper in the camera card chamber to guide the thinner cards' sockets to match the camera plug pins.

Now I have a dumb admission...i have no idea which type my two cards are :lol:
I had to look all this up because EPAY lists them by type I or II and i didn't know which to buy.
....and i still wouldn't know what i'm buying because most sellers don't say which type it is they are selling anyway :?

[FlyingPete]

In fact.. 4 cards = 4 times as likely one will fail. No?


Ah statistics, got love them!

Lets say you have a 1 in 100 chance of lossing a card on a given day.

So you take one card out 4GB worth, there is a 1 in 100 chance of lossing everything.

But if you take four 1GB cards there is avery slight chance of loosing them all, HOWEVER there is a 1 in 25 of loosing a quarter of them!

[CyberDyneSystems]

It may make one feel safer having thier images spread across multiple cards... but really unless you have images copied on two cards.. the risk of loss is the same.

In fact.. 4 cards = 4 times as likely one will fail. No?


not true.
If a freak occurence were to happen it is much more likely to happen on one card and not to 4 seperate cards

I said 4 times as likely ONE card will fail.. not all four...

[booggerg]

You're all forgetting the fact that you're comparing a moving mechanical device with a non-moving static piece of circuitry. Everyone knows the moving one is less reliable. Drive technology is not yet where it can promise a significant margin of safety with regards to hard drive reliability, especially when it is used out in the field. I'll take the 4- 1giger any day.

[CyberDyneSystems]

You're all forgetting the fact that you're comparing a moving mechanical device with a non-moving static piece of circuitry.

I don't think anyone has forgotten that MD cards are hard drives.

....I don't think I would subject my camera and lenses to anything I would consider rough enough to damage a microdrive....

I have been fortunate to have experienced only one failure. That was with a Lexar CF card in cold weather conditions.... A microdrive worked just fine in the same conditions....

CF cards should be a little more durable than microdrives, but microdrives are not really fragile and it is just bad luck if you get a failure with either.

I heard that they have moving part so they break easier,



As for MD Vs. CF,. I agree .. MD is clearly more susceptible to damage from abuse. But they really take more of a beating than you'd imagine.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I am getting the 20D pretty soon. I will be doing a lot of burst shots. Like anywhere from 2-10 shots in a row. Should I go for a faster CF card or is it just better to go with the Micro drive?
Thanks

I prefer CF cards to MD. With 2GB CF cards.. fast ones.. well under $200.00.. I prefer that solution. Still,. $150.00 for 4GB of MD storage is hard to argue with.

I try not to drop my MD cards! :) I HAVE dropped a CF on occasion... and they all still work :wink:

[CyberDyneSystems]

Now I have a dumb admission...i have no idea which type my two cards are :lol:
I had to look all this up because EPAY lists them by type I or II and i didn't know which to buy.
....and i still wouldn't know what i'm buying because most sellers don't say which type it is they are selling anyway :?

If your two cards are CF solid state memory.. then they are Type1

If your two cards are Microdrives.. thne they are type2

With a very small handfull of ancient exceptions... (which someone is bound to point out if I don't mention them here) ALL CF memory cards made are type 1. The Only Type2 cards that have seen any sort of popular acceptance have been the MicroDrives.

[booggerg]

You're all forgetting the fact that you're comparing a moving mechanical device with a non-moving static piece of circuitry.

I don't think anyone has forgotten that MD cards are hard drives.

....I don't think I would subject my camera and lenses to anything I would consider rough enough to damage a microdrive....

I have been fortunate to have experienced only one failure. That was with a Lexar CF card in cold weather conditions.... A microdrive worked just fine in the same conditions....

CF cards should be a little more durable than microdrives, but microdrives are not really fragile and it is just bad luck if you get a failure with either.

I heard that they have moving part so they break easier,



As for MD Vs. CF,. I agree .. MD is clearly more susceptible to damage from abuse. But they really take more of a beating than you'd imagine.

Then the argument of 4 CF cards having 4X the chances of a card failing than 1 MD card doesn't really apply given the aforementioned understanding of HDs vs Memory. It's comparing apples to oranges. A more valid comparison would be 4 MD cards vs. 1 MD card.

[robertwgross]

If I shot a wedding on four 256MB CF cards, and then if one of those cards completely failed before I could get it transferred to the computer... I could still work with that. Having 75% of my images would be rough, but survivable.

On the other hand, if I shot a wedding on one 1GB card, and then if that one card completely failed... I would be shot dead by the bride, and then trampled on by the bride's mother.

I prefer to stick with a multiple of smaller cards, thank you, and all of my cards are CF, no microdrives.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

You're all forgetting the fact that you're comparing a moving mechanical device with a non-moving static piece of circuitry.

I don't think anyone has forgotten that MD cards are hard drives.

....I don't think I would subject my camera and lenses to anything I would consider rough enough to damage a microdrive....

I have been fortunate to have experienced only one failure. That was with a Lexar CF card in cold weather conditions.... A microdrive worked just fine in the same conditions....

CF cards should be a little more durable than microdrives, but microdrives are not really fragile and it is just bad luck if you get a failure with either.

I heard that they have moving part so they break easier,



As for MD Vs. CF,. I agree .. MD is clearly more susceptible to damage from abuse. But they really take more of a beating than you'd imagine.

Then the argument of 4 CF cards having 4X the chances of a card failing than 1 MD card doesn't really apply given the aforementioned understanding of HDs vs Memory. It's comparing apples to oranges. A more valid comparison would be 4 MD cards vs. 1 MD card.

Where did I compare four 1GB CF cards to one 4GB MD card?

I Was comparing apples to apples.. you chose to interpret what you read as apples to oranges even though that was never stated.

Again.. the two sentences in which I compared MD to CF which both you and I have quoted.. is the only point where I have compared apples to oranges.. and as allready pointed out,. that quote agrees with your feelings on the subject. So I am not sure what we are arguing about now? :?

Still Bob's point makes sense.. and I use multiple cards too. But with the gargantuan file sizes of 8MB RAW files.. I chose to use multiple large CF cards.. not dozens of small one :)

[robertwgross]

Still Bob's point makes sense.. and I use multiple cards too. But with the gargantuan file sizes of 8MB RAW files.. I chose to use multiple large CF cards.. not dozens of small one :)

I would say that the size of an 8 MB RAW file is always 8 MB. Nothing gargantuan about that. I think they've always been that size, for a long time.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

Oops.. 8MP... :roll:

[FlyingPete]

Hey CDS, love your footer:
I'm in love with the X-FACTOR

Must be time to start another thread on that one, what has it been, one week now?

[ChrisKolb]

I try not to drop my MD cards! :) I HAVE dropped a CF on occasion... and they all still work :wink:

When I owned my first digital camera, one of my CF cards went through the washer and dryer on two separate occasions... and it still works flawlessly to this day. Try seeing if a microdrive would survive that I'm quite sure you'd be disappointed.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I would never argue that! :roll:

In fact.. I still have a functinal 512MB CF that I dropped.. into the ocean! It bounced off a rock first!

And I agree completely.. the MD would be dead many times over after that treatement. :oops:

[Ominous1]

The more cards you use, the higher your chance for data loss.

Some of you sound like you shoot on a hundrad 8 meg cards. I'd rather stick with my 1+ gig cards then have to stop and change cards every 30 shots.

What do you think this is...film?

If data loss is of true concern then you should get a portable storage device like a compact drive http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.422/it.A/id.549/.f

[MarkH]

I think that anyone that is truely paranoid about data loss wants to reduce the risks to as low as possible, they should get a 1D MkII and shoot to 2 cards at a time. The odds of 2 different cards failing at the same time are very very low.

Luckily for me none of my photos are of life and death importance and after shooting over 12 thousand photos on my 10D I have not had a CF card failure. If I ever have a card failure that loses images then I guess I'll just have to accept it and try to get on with my life regardless.

BTW
I think that CF is more reliable, but both MD and CF have an incredibly low failure rate - probably less than 1% chance that either card would fail during a normal years use.

[JasonMX]

Wow, I am considering buying one of those storage devices. I go on vacations all the time (Cayman Islands, Europe, etc.) where I don't have a PC near. That would store so many photos when I am out for several weeks.

[Roach711]

I'm a computer network administrator for 100 PCs and 4 servers. The conventional wisdom is that solid state devices are more reliable than mechanical devices but the faliures I see seem to be random. On a given day *anything* can fail. I can say that in the last few years I've replaced memory modules, motherboards and hard drives in about equal numbers (and those numbers are very, very small).

This leads me to agree with the multiple card theory. If my single card fails my shooting day is over. I use a microdrive for my primary storage(and have never had a problem) but also carry a backup solid state CF just in case. In the end, luck (or Karma or fate) decides what is going to fail. All we can do is be prepared for the most likely failures.

Of course carrying a single camera body also presents a single point of failure.....Oy!

Da Roach

[JasonMX]

"On a given day *anything* can fail."

I am a System Admin too :lol: (an overworked one at that)

I agree anything can fail out of the blue, but mechanical components (that have rotating plates and a hammer to read it) has a higher probability failing then solid state stuff like RAM cards. Hard drives are considered the most volatile component in a PC with a lifespan of ~4 years now.

I have no problem using Micrdrives, but I do agree that they are more likely to have problems then a memory chip.

I am looking at buying one of those 40 gig devices you can copy your flash carts too while on the go. That is a hell of a lot space.

[Roach711]

No arguement on the probabilities. I use redundant drive arrays on all my servers (with hot spares!). But what took my main server down lately was a memory problem.

My approach is to buy quality equipment and carry spares when it is cost effective. You can never use probability to explain the sheer cussedness of the universe.

Da Roach

[turbotony]

I was reading this post and all the comments about the moving parts in a micro drive seems a tad overlooked.....the camera you put it in has "moving parts" :D

[Cadwell]

:idea: I suggest carrying two bodies, spare CF cards, extra lenses and of course a spare flash. :idea:
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Then of course you're almost certain to trip up and break an arm. Murphy is determined and relentless foe. :twisted:

[SSonnentag]

That's why you buy a 1DM2 or the new 1DsM2...they can write to the SD and the CF cards simultaneously. :)

Shawn

[CyberDyneSystems]

It's true.. it's "On Camera RAID" :mrgreen:

[Roach711]

[That's why you buy a 1DM2 or the new 1DsM2...they can write to the SD and the CF cards simultaneously.

Shawn]

...Deciding which kidney to sell...[/quote]

[yason]

Hi All,

I uses both CF & MD....used to have an IBM 1GB MD, now using Hitachi 5GB... work wonderfully on my 10D (however, u gotta format with 32k cluster for better performance).

Now I was told this regarding CF, pls don't shoot me, I heard this from my engineer friend.

CF cards are built with flash memory chips.... say a 1GB is actually some number of chips inside. They are configured in an serial array starting with Bank 0, Bank 1... Bank n. Thus, Bank 0 will alwalys be the 1st to be written irregardless whether all the banks are used up or not. As long as you erase all the data, it will start with Bank 0.

Now if you remember that there is a max number of writing times before a memory chip wares out, he advises me to full up a CF card before erasing... this will optimize the use of all the Banks (ware out all the chips and not just the 1st), thus optimizing the life-span of the CF... MD don't have this issue as it is not configured this way.

Go figure.... :?

[MarkH]

Now if you remember that there is a max number of writing times before a memory chip wares out, he advises me to full up a CF card before erasing... this will optimize the use of all the Banks (ware out all the chips and not just the 1st), thus optimizing the life-span of the CF... MD don't have this issue as it is not configured this way.

This max number of writing times, is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or more?

If the 1GB card you buy today for $99 should fail after say - 8 short years (because you kept taking a handful of pics and copying then and you wore out the first mem chip), how much will it cost to replace it?

I am not entirely convinced that this problem is worth worrying about!

[CyberDyneSystems]

I'm just thinking about how many times in a PCs life those first RAM chips get used..... (ei get turned "on" then "off" )

a lot more than any CF card...