Microdrive reliability

Not sure I understand what you're asking...but there's a general consensus that the 340Mb microdrives suffered many more failures than the 1Gb drives that preceded them. It doesn't mean the Microdrive as a product line or concept is bad.

My 340 MB drive failed within 2 months. My two 1 GB drivse have functioned perfectly for over 2 years.

Microdrive reliability

I bought a used 1GB IBM MD as part of a group of items on e-bay about a year ago and it has been extremely reliable. A few months ago my wife found it in the washing machine after it had been run through the wash, rinse and spin cycles. I must have placed it in my shirt pocket after taking it out of a card reader and then forgot it was there when I later put the shirt down the laundry chute. I was certain the drive would be DOA. I've heard about CF cards being washed or otherwise soaked without much harm, but not microdrives. To my great surprise and relief, after some initial hesitation and skipping, my card reader read the drive and I reformatted it. Of course I let the washed MD dry out before placing it in the reader or camera. It has functioned in my D60 without error ever since. My wife and I have used it to take several hundreds of pictures.

While I certainly don't recommend this sort of mistreatment, I can testify that 1 GB IBM microdrives are reliable and robust.

A couple of years ago I bought a camera for my wife that came with a 340mb microdrive. Within 30 days the drive failed, so luckily we were able to get it replaced from the store where we bought it. We've had the replacement ever since with no problems. To be fair, I've also had a solid state 1GB CF card fail (I really am careful with these things, just bad luck I guess). There was no data loss, I just couldn't use more than 280mb of the card. I sent it back to Viking and they sent me a replacement the day they received my damaged card. Now that's service! The Viking cards are guarenteed for 5 years, so I'll probably be sticking with them.

-Deva

Just another poster with a 1g microdrive with over three years of carefree use.

I think my secret to sucess is always formatting after uploading images.

-Pete

I've had my 340MB microdrive for more than 3 years now. Never had any problems. I've never even had to reformat it.

I have 3 1 gig microdrives 2 still work and one failed after it was dropped.

Your guess is as good as mine. I haave always found the micro drives to be reliable

danphoto1 wrote:
I have 3 1 gig microdrives 2 still work and one failed after it was dropped.

Your guess is as good as mine. I haave always found the micro drives to be reliable

I've managed to drop several items onto the ground (hard ground)... CD players, mp3 players, PDAs, cell phones, and small digital cameras. none of which "failed after it was dropped."

????

of course it does. if one model is so bad, what prohibits the company from making other bad models as well?

Another non sequitur... More likely it means they learn from their mistakes and make better products.

Hi Folks,

well I started of with three 1Gb microdrives and they performed without problems. When I had the cash and chance to replace them with CF cards I did. I now have 3 1Gb CF cards and only use the microdrives if I fill the CF cards and haven't had the chance to backup the cards. Means I need to shoot around 300 Raw images before I use the microdrives. There aren't many places that I'm going to do that without the option of creating a backup. If it became more common then I would get another CF card or two. I know that this is probably being overly cautious but I like to have filters and lens hoods on my lenses too. Doesn't mean I wont use them in the rain or in the beach, just means im gonna be careful with them.

all the best

BearSummer

I have 2 x 1 GB IBM MicroDrives and 2 x 1 GB Kingston CF. I've had problems on several occasions with one of the Kingston CFs but never with the MicroDrives.

So you don't buy Canon cameras because the T-80 wasn't very good?