microdrive - why?

[opaline]

I'm confused about the advantages of a microdrive over cheaper CF or SD cards. Is the advantage simply the amount of storage which cuts down on the # of cards to keep up with? Based on the threads, this appears to be the only advantage adn I cannot see that it outweighs the disadvantages of power consumption, fragility.

Sorry if this is duplicative but I am trying to figure out what I am missing... try to search threads for a concise answer but there are tons of them ...

[kltye]

At larger capacities ( >2GB), microdrives are cheaper per GB. I do agree that smaller capacity drives, especially those <= 1GB are more expensve.

In short, get a microdrive if you need a ton of space for a lower price.

[Vric]

It's all about money.

If you want a 4gb card, and have the money for a CF card, there is no adventage to get a microdrive.

Microdrive consume more power and are much more fragile.

But if you want a 4gb capacity at the same price of a 2gb CF card, then it's for you.

So it's always about money

[ppt]

if you need tonns of storage, u would have to get a 6gb MD cos the biggest i have seen for SD is 2gb & CF is 4gb.

and the MD is not going to leave a gap in the CF slot like the thinner CFI, so i guess it will look nicer

[dlangton]

There are 8GB CF available; They cost about $680, last I checked.

Just checked at Newegg. The price has dropped to $650. See http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820171091 . I might get one with my income tax refund.

[Ken S]

There are actually 12GB CF cards available, but last time I checked I could buy a decent used vehicle for the price of one. Considering you can get a 6GB MD CF for around $200 dollars, I know which way I would go if I needed that kind of memory.

[R0ninBlade]

There are actually 12GB CF cards available, but last time I checked I could buy a decent used vehicle for the price of one. Considering you can get a 6GB MD CF for around $200 dollars, I know which way I would go if I needed that kind of memory.

what 6GB MD are u talking about that costs $200, the one on Dell.com?

[kltye]

I just got a 4GB Hitachi microdrive for $95 on ebay. Add the 10% off coupon from paypal, and another $5 from ebay - this is looking to be one cheap MD.

I also bought the extended battery for $46. Hope that's a good price!

[ozien]

Well, other than capacity, the main reason to use a Microdrive instead of CF is in a write-intensive application. i.e. if you wanted to try and run Linux on top of WindowsCE or something bizarre like that. For most PDA applications, CF or SD will be just fine and will last many years.

[techno-babble incoming. may cause dizziness, heart palpatations or nausea in lay persons]

Remember, flash cards can tolerate a relatively limited number of erase/write cycles compared to magnetic media. Each block of flash ROM can only be erased and rewritten so many times (approximately 100,000 I believe) before it can't be written to any more.

100,000 erase/write cycles sounds like a lot, and it is a lot for simply storing data that isn't updated regularly (like application files, MP3 files, photos, etc...). For data that may have to be re-written several times a minute (like a swap partition in Linux), you'd fry a CF card in a few months of use.

Granted, magnetic media has a maximum number of erase/write cycles before it fails as well. But magnetic disk can handle on the order of 1,000,000,000 erase/write cycles or more before failure. You're more likely to lose data to magnetic migration or mechanical failure than you are to wearing out the ferrous coating.

FYI: Just a side note - remember the "Built-in Storage" on your PDA is flash memory, too. Frequently rewriting the data stored there will wear your on-board flash out eventually. But again, for things like applications or data that isn't going to be re-written regularly, it would take years to decades to trash the on-board storage.

[mmelgar]

This is slightly off topic for this site, but I had a microdrive that I frequently used in my digital camera to take on trips. It was great to have that much memory when your on a 10day family vacation. The problem was that I dropped it a small distance once when transfering it to the card reader and it was damaged. All the data was unrecoverable. IBM was nice enough to replace it, but about six months later the card failed again for no identifiable reason. Luckily I had nothing irreplaceable on there but I've learned my lesson. I will never use a MD for any important data unless its already backed up somewhere else. I suppose for storing video, music files to use on your PDA its not so bad since those files are all backed up on your computer, but if you need that much storage on your digital camera because you're going to be away from your home/computer for a long time and can't backup/download the files, I would strongly recommend never using a microdrive for that purpose.

[opaline]

Thanks to everyone for the information. Once again, I have learned so much from you all and this site and have made the decision that I really have no need for a microdrive.
I'd buy you all a good beer if I could.

[Morphy]

I'd buy you all a good beer if I could.

Who says you can't?
. Just kidding.

[Xault]

For watching movies, and listening to music from a MicroDrive, is it more likely for it to skip when walking or moving, say a bumpy card or plane ride, then a CF card would?

Cause I would like to get either 4 GB CF or MD for movies and music and listen to it while driving, or on a plane... hopefully with BT headphones.