Hello, what do we have here, a 6GB Microdrive:

[FlyingPete]

OK who knew about these Western Digital releasing a 6GB CF format Microdive:
http://www.wdc.com/oneinch/

I hope the fact that we now have three large storage guys (I'm going to ignore those 2.2GB ones, and hopefully they will go away!) doing these that we will see some price competition happening :D

[tim]

"Oops, I slipped and dropped my microdrive, what do we have now... an expensive paperweight".

[Hellashot]

I hope the fact that we now have three large storage guys (I'm going to ignore those 2.2GB ones, and hopefully they will go away!) doing these that we will see some price competition happening :D

What are you talking about? CF is by far the cheapest flash memory per MB or GB out there! The other flash memory formats are trying to make their cards smaller and smaller which only keeps prices high. You notice that any serious cameras require CF cards because of capacity needs and speed.

[tim]

You notice that any serious cameras require CF cards because of capacity needs and speed.

The 1Ds Mk II also accepts SD cards, which are reported to be faster than CF.

[F1_Fan]

Microdrives are a solution in search of a (photography) problem. They had a place back when the 1GB drive was available and CF was struggling to reach 256MB sizes. Nowadays, I can't see why someone would go with such a fragile solution.

The best market for these devices is in portable music players. This firmat is in use in the iPod mini and have been used by Creative for over a year now.

[FlyingPete]

What are you talking about? CF is by far the cheapest flash memory per MB or GB out there! The other flash memory formats are trying to make their cards smaller and smaller which only keeps prices high. You notice that any serious cameras require CF cards because of capacity needs and speed.

I am not arguing that they are not cheap, but until recently the only motivation Hitachi (IBM) had to drop the pricing on their Microdrives was competition from flash. Microdrives gig for gig need to be cheaper than flash or they won't sell. What would you go for $100 for 1GB solid state card, or $100 for a mechanical thing full of spinning bits. But what if the microdrive was half the cost?

Now we have Seagate and Western Digital also playing in this area, we will hopfully see even cheaper storage and increasing capacities, I will never argue with price drops in CF storage!

[steven]

Just a comment,
but I find it odd that the people that don't have micro dirves comment that they are too fragile while the people who own them and use them comment that they are not all that frigile and stand up to quite a bit of abuse, not as much as solid state CF but still more that the fragile cartel make out.

[F1_Fan]

What would you go for $100 for 1GB solid state card, or $100 for a mechanical thing full of spinning bits. But what if the microdrive was half the cost?


Easy decision. Compact Flash. Seriously. I'd even make that choice if the microdrive was 1/4 the cost.

You see, I learned removable storage at the temple of the Syquest SparQ drive. 1GB removable disks that died if you looked at them sideways. If I can't drop it, I won't use it.

[FlyingPete]

Just a comment,
but I find it odd that the people that don't have micro dirves comment that they are too fragile while the people who own them and use them comment that they are not all that frigile and stand up to quite a bit of abuse, not as much as solid state CF but still more that the fragile cartel make out.

There shouldn't really be much of an issue for how tough they are, esspcially if they spend most of their time in the camera, the camera will probably break before the microdrive will.

The physically larger a drive mechanism the higher chance of failure caused by mechanical influence, these things are tiny, you will have to hit them really hard to get a head crash, probably as hard as you would a flash card.

The one thing flash has over MD's is water. I doubt a MD would survive a dunk, where as I often here of stories where a CF card has gone for a swim, or through a washing machine and survived.

[FlyingPete]

Easy decision. Compact Flash. Seriously. I'd even make that choice if the microdrive was 1/4 the cost.

You see, I learned removable storage at the temple of the Syquest SparQ drive. 1GB removable disks that died if you looked at them sideways. If I can't drop it, I won't use it.

I am of a simular view, but I might pay at half or a third the cost.

However the SparQ suffered from an issue the MD's don't have, the SparQ cartridges didn't have heads, only disks, so they had to physically open for the drive heads to read/write them, MD's have the heads integrated into them, so a comparision with a desktop or laptop HD is more fair.

[ScottE]

I have used a combination Lexar and Sandisk CF cards and IBM and Hitachi microdrives since I got my D60 about three years ago. I have given them all fairly rough treatment on safari in the dust of Africa, being banged around in a pack on backpacking trips in the Rockies and in the cold and snow while photographing ski races. The only one that has failed so far was a cheap Lexar CF card that gave me err99 messages in extreme. I took it out and put in a microdrive that worked just fine despite the temperature.

I prefer my Sandisk Extreme card because it both downloads and uploads more quickly and is rated for hot and cold conditions. On the other hand, I still carry my microdrives and use them when the Extreme is full.

Base on my personal experience, the microdrives are nowhere near as delicate as some people state they are.

[Cadwell]

ROFLMAO...

:rolleyes:

Every time the subject of microdrives come up, the same tired old lines about their fragile nature and "you can't drop them" get trotted out. I've had microdrives for any number of years, IBM and Hitachi, 340MB all the way through to 4GB and I've dropped all of 'em from various heights onto various surfaces at one time or another. I've never had one of them fail - they all still work. In the same period I've had three (count 'em - 3) solid state Compact Flash cards and one solid state Smart Media card fail on me. I make that 4-0 to the microdrive camp.

The last time we had a thread on here about relative reliability, there were as many people posted about failing solid state CF cards as there were microdrive faults.

Nowadays, I use SD and solid state CF cards because I shoot sports and card speed is important to me... but I would never discount a microdrive should I be in need of cheap, large capacity storage, and I still carry the old 4GB Hitachi around "just in case".

[FlyingPete]

ROFLMAO...

:rolleyes:

Every time the subject of microdrives come up, the same tired old lines about their fragile nature and "you can't drop them" get trotted out. I've had microdrives for any number of years, IBM and Hitachi, 340MB all the way through to 4GB and I've dropped all of 'em from various heights onto various surfaces at one time or another. I've never had one of them fail - they all still work. In the same period I've had three (count 'em - 3) solid state Compact Flash cards and one solid state Smart Media card fail on me. I make that 4-0 to the microdrive camp.

The last time we had a thread on here about relative reliability, there were as many people posted about failing solid state CF cards as there were microdrive faults.

Nowadays, I use SD and solid state CF cards because I shoot sports and card speed is important to me... but I would never discount a microdrive should I be in need of cheap, large capacity storage, and I still carry the old 4GB Hitachi around "just in case".

Sounds like poll time!

For this we need two, the first to establish how many Microdrives their are out their relative to flash, and the second for failure rates:

Here is a link to the first:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=57123