IBM Microdrive

[delphinus]

Had anyone tried IBM microdrive for their Digicam? I heard that it consumes more power as compared to CF flash memory counterpart. Planning to buy one soon, but want to check if anyone had tried to compare how many picture can be taken if using CF flash memory and IBM microdrive.

Delphinus
PS S30

[jazt]

There is another thead in this forum about this topic, but here's my thoughts.

The standard compact flash uses 20ma-38ma (rest vs. writing)

A 1G Microdrive uses 20ma(idle), but 220ma (read) and 250ma (write). Now, I just checked this in a spec document and was impressed with the "idle" usage.

The 1G, 220-250ma seems very high....but in the "big picture" of a shooting day, how much of your time is spent reading/writing vs idle (power on). I would say most of it is idle. So, how much power is taken writing?

I have a Canon G1 with 1G drive, I once used it on a outing in Hawaii for 10 hrs, 350 RAW photos, with LCD, some flash. Etc..... No problems at all. One battery, spare never came out of the bag.

I would expect the "stlye" of your picture taking to have as much effect on battery life as the storage media.

I.E ( LCD, flash, zoom, on/off, repeat, on, review, delete)

So, my suggestion is don't worry about battery life, but compare the cost of say... 4 X 256 MB flash cards to a 1G.

Compare the potential, loss of a 1G Microdrive (either by loss or failure) vs that of lossing "1" 256 flash cards!

I bought the 1G before the 256/512 compact cards were cost effective.

Today, if/when my 1G fails I think you can tell what I would do.

But hopefully it won't die because I have a 10D on order!

[delphinus]

Thanks for your reply Jay, exactly the info I'm looking for. At first I thought flash memory does not consume any power in its rest mode. Thanks for pointing the info to me.

Delphinus
PS S30

[hurry]

Today prices of 1 GB CF are near down to microdrive.

You avoid with CF all disadvantages of microdrive - sensitive to temperature (I know someone, whos "frozen" microdrive in PDA was unusable forever), shock, falling down, more power.

One year ago 1 gb microdrive and 512 mb Sandisk UltraCF were same in price, I decided for CF512.

It's not wise to use expensive, high volume mediums. Defects (f.e. a write errors) delete a lot of good pictures.


ordinary Standard CF (from a data sheet)

Sleep mode 0.45 mA
Idle mode 0.3 mA

[jeffsl]

my ibm 340 microdrive died today after 3+ years of service. :(