Microdrive or Solid State??

[mcaldwell]

Getting a 20D in a few days. I already have a 1G uDrive from my G2 that blew up. Never had a problem with it, but thought I would ask for opinions of an additional (2G, maybe 4G) microdrive versus silicon memory. Nothing exotic (high temp, high G's, etc) expected.

Is there a difference in max burst, etc, between one or the other that I would care about?

Mike

[Mycroft]

The microdrive is slower, less robust, and takes more battery power to operate than a solid-state memory card.

[mcaldwell]

I expected it would take longer to cook the image, but images are first buffered in RAM in the body, so would it slow me down other than occassionally between maximum bursts? Battery power is a big considereation. "...less robust"; what do you mean?

Thanks.

[tim]

Less robust means if you drop it a microdrive is more likely to break than a memory card. I wouldn't use a microdrive myself, the small savings in money has the potential to cause a big loss of images.

[Skip Souza]

The microdrive is more fragile and more prone to failure.

[Jackal]

When you start complicating such important things I say there are more things that can go wrong.

Those solid states can take a beating (and even go through a washing cycle in a washing machine) and still keep on going.

[rdenney]

Microdrives were worth the risk of breakage when it was the only way to get a really large amount of storage. But now that flash memory is just as big and faster, in addition to being far more robust, microdrives are really obsolete.

Rick "who would not consider a microdrive when 1-gig CF cards are $89 at Costco" Denney

[robertwgross]

Two or three years ago, a microdrive was still a good choice, especially for those who like the larger capacities. But you had to be willing to accept the risks, problems, and limitations of that technology.

Within the last year or two, I think microdrives have almost dropped off the charts for performance as compared to (regular) compact flash cards.

---Bob Gross---

[Nightcrawler]

I thought I heard that the new generation of microdrives don't use much more power than the solid state ones. On this website, http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7303 you can see that the Hitachi microdrives do quite alright. And for $170 you can get 4GB. As for the debate between the two types, I think that they will both do quite fine.

[Skip Souza]

When chosing a CF card check out http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007 I use the ScanDisk Ultra II and haven't been let down yet.

[Nightcrawler]

Oh, one more thing, stay away from the 2.2GB MagicStor microdrives. They give microdrives a bad name.

[lostdoggy]

At almost half the speed of CF its pretty darn slow if you ask me.
3.6MB/S vs 5.9MB/S

[nosquare2003]

Well from the database, the fastest CF card in older cameras:
- 1Ds: 2.074MB/S
- 1D: 3.177MB/S (fewer pixels)
- 10D: 1.393MB/S (fewer pixels)

3.6MB/S is now considered slow and the technology moves fast!

Personally, I don't find any problems in using MD in a camera. I suspect that the battery consumption in lens motor movement is much more than the MD card. And I believe that it is not that fragile while its speed in camera doesn't cause me any problems. However, as the price of CF cards get lower, the CF card will be a better choice.

The problems of battery consumption and slower speed of MD will be more significant when you use external backup device (rather than in camera) IMHO.

[Jon]

I've had two CF (Kingston and SanDisk Ultra 2) fail on me, no microdrives. The microdrives currently in production are pretty solidly built, and no more likely to fail in operation than CF except if
1) you drop the camera while the drive's being written to (in which case you hav bigger problems than the MD)
2) you take it swimming
Mind you, a drop from a high place might damage it more than a CF, but the bigger problem would be finding the wretched thing after such an adventure.

[PacAce]

Getting a 20D in a few days. I already have a 1G uDrive from my G2 that blew up. Never had a problem with it, but thought I would ask for opinions of an additional (2G, maybe 4G) microdrive versus silicon memory. Nothing exotic (high temp, high G's, etc) expected.

Is there a difference in max burst, etc, between one or the other that I would care about?

Mike
I have nothing useful to add here that hasn't already been mentioned but I did want to make a OT comment. It's been a while since I've seen anybody use "u" (or more specifically "μ") to abbreviate the word "micro". Is your background in electronics or related field? Just curious. :)

[Nightcrawler]

I have nothing useful to add here that hasn't already been mentioned but I did want to make a OT comment. It's been a while since I've seen anybody use "u" (or more specifically "μ") to abbreviate the word "micro". Is your background in electronics or related field? Just curious. :)

I used that abbrieviation a lot in my Computer Engineering courses.

[PacAce]

I used that abbrieviation a lot in my Computer Engineering courses.
Oh, yeah, that's right. I should have asked a broader question like if he had any engineering background. :)

[Mycroft]

Technically the mu symbol ("μ") is only used to prefix a measurement of some kind, or sometimes alone as a variable. Since "drive" isn't a unit of measurement, you cannot express "microdrive" as "μdrive" :)

(god I'm tired. I had to edit this message like 4 times before I got it right.)

[robertwgross]

god I'm tired. I had to edit this message like 4 times before I got it right.)

So, is the term "anal-retentive" supposed to be hyphenated?

---Bob Gross---

[mcaldwell]

OK, so I used to feed my family as an engineer. Now I just prosecute patents and let others do the inventing.

Mike

[ScottE]

Since I got my first digital camera about 3 years ago I have used a combination of Lexar and Sandisk CF cards and IBM and Hitachi microdrives. I have only had two failures and both were with Lexar CF cards. As a result I find the statements that microdrives are less reliable to be somewhat misleading. In my case they have certainly been more reliable and less susceptable to failure than Lexar CF cards.

When shooting, I don't find there is any difference in speed between shots until the buffer is full (7 shots on a 20D in RAW format). After that the microdrives are slightly slower, but both seem too slow for action.

Downloading a full card to the computer on a USB2 connection is where the microdrives are noticeably slower. Since this is rarely a time limited activity, the slower speed is not important. It does however make a difference with my FlashTrax in the field when I am using batter power to download and the CF cards get more downloads per charge.

In short, I prefer the fast Sandisk CF cards, but do not hesitate to use the microdrives for backup purposes.

Scott

[mcaldwell]

ScottE, this is the first reference I have seen to my hunch that pictures are first buffered into in-camera RAM, then later cooked to the CF or MD. Do you know of any published specs concerning minimum access time, data transfer rate, etc? I suspect that the data bus for reading and writing is the same, thus data is sent to the RAM, but once writing from the RAM to the CF / MD starts the buffer cannot be written to until it is done moving its data to the card / drive.

Mike

[ScottE]

ScottE, this is the first reference I have seen to my hunch that pictures are first buffered into in-camera RAM, then later cooked to the CF or MD. Do you know of any published specs concerning minimum access time, data transfer rate, etc? I suspect that the data bus for reading and writing is the same, thus data is sent to the RAM, but once writing from the RAM to the CF / MD starts the buffer cannot be written to until it is done moving its data to the card / drive.

I can't give you any references. Based on my experience with a D60 it works the way you suggest. Once the camera starts writing from RAM to the CF card it is not possible to take any more pictures until the RAM buffer is empty.

With my 20D it does not seem to work that way. The camera will take pictures until the RAM buffer is full. It will then take another picture as soon as there is enough RAM available for one more picture. For example, if I am shooting sports in RAW and hold the shutter down I will get seven shots in quick succession and then a shot about every 1/2 second as RAM becomes available. When I quit shooting, the red light will be on for a few more seconds indicating that data is still being written the the CF card. You can start taking pictures again at any time during that period.

This is one of the advantages of the 20D over the D60 for sports photography. You are not out of action for so long if you pause after taking a few shots.

Scott

[mcaldwell]

Very interesting. Perhaps dual port RAM being used. Now can't decide between 2Gb, 4Gb, SD or uDrive; seem to be many conflicting observations about uDrives and speed, reliability, etc. Think I need to read the fine print of specs, especially regarding power. I assume the uDrive spins all the time so standby power would be high; SD standby should be unmeasurable. But I suppose the uDrive spin up time could be fast enough to also have low standby. Specs will tell, if I can find them.

[LHG]

After suffer the stealing of a 1GB card with realy critical work.... I had to realize that what my father told me was right: never put all eggs in the same baslet....

[Jon]

For performance specs, check Rob Galbraith's CF database (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007). He's tested most of the significant ones in most of the significant cameras. For spin-up times, check Hitachi's web site.