CF / SD card inserted suck up batt?

02-07-05, 10:56 AM

Hi veterans of x50v, like to enquire whether if i add in an additional say 256mb CF card (since it's lying around

) will it significantly suck up the batt?? Currently already using 1GB SD on my x50v

Howard2k · 02-07-05, 11:15 AM

Nope. You'll see no difference from a memory card. It will use SOME power but it's negligible

mrob · 02-07-05, 01:50 PM

Actually I'm curious about this too. I just got a Hitachi 4GB microdrive and my battery seems to be draining faster even if I'm not accessing files on the microdrive.

Has anyone else noticed this?

pkcarlton · 02-07-05, 02:11 PM

I haven't noticed any and I have a 2.2G Magic CF and 1G SD card in.

ceej13 · 02-07-05, 02:12 PM

A CF microdrive will definitely drain your battery, mrob, since it has moving parts inside. It's not like a CF or SD solid state memory card.

mrob · 02-07-05, 03:44 PM

I recognize that it will cause more of a drain while it's in use. My concern is that it seems to be causing more drain even when not in use. My theory is that it is spinning up on a regular basis for some reason or another.

Ranma13 · 02-07-05, 03:49 PM

Well, I know that whenever I turn the Axim on, it spins up the microdrive, but as for periodic access, it probably only does that when you use an Open File dialog or browse the directories or something.

mrob · 02-07-05, 04:09 PM

Perhaps there is some application that I've installed that is constantly doing the equivalent of the "open file" function. The battery is not draining at an outrageous rate. It just seems to be draining maybe 10-20% faster. This has just been through general observation so far, not through any real benchmarking.

The difference is significant enough that it was very noticable as I was taking some notes in a meeting today. I wasn't doing anything else other than just normal PDA stuff. All of a sudden I was down to about 80%. I have done similar things in the past and have observed a drain down to only like 90%.

Obviously I need some additional testing, but I'm pretty confident that it's not just in my head.

Ranma13 · 02-07-05, 04:11 PM

Well, as a workaround you can keep the CF card unplugged unless you need it, if you want to maximize battery life. Make sure you bring the plastic plug for the CF slot though since the plastic on the back of the slot is pretty flimsy.

alias · 02-08-05, 01:00 AM

forget all the gizmos and do-thats we want our Vees to do...i want a "10,000,000mAh":exc: battery that is at 100% all the time!!! :approve: :) :yeah: :cheers:

mrob · 02-08-05, 12:12 PM

Well, I'm convinced that I'm not going to be able to keep the microdrive in my Axim all the time as I had planned. My research has found that simply having a microdrive in the device draws significantly more power even if you're not accessing data on the microdrive.

I thought that I knew what I was getting into. I understood that there was much more battery drain when playing MP3s or video files from the microdrive. I did not think that the drive would affect battery life simply by being plugged in.

Seems to me that Dell and/or Microsoft could have easily avoided this by creating either a hardware or software "on/off" switch for the compactflash so that it wouldn't draw current unless you wanted it to.

I guess I'll being using the microdrive for external storage only ... putting it in only to copy data over to my SD card.

Loibisch · 02-08-05, 01:33 PM

To answer the main question:
Yes, SD cards and CF cards draw power, even in idle and when the device is "off"...why? No idea, but I'm certain they do.

mrob · 02-08-05, 08:57 PM

Well, I decided that I just couldn't deal with the reduced battery life with the microdrive in there. I returned it tonight. Just ordered a Kingston 2GB CF to replace it.

Hopefully future microdrives and/or WM operating systems will take battery life into consideration and provide a way to turn the drive completely off when it's not needed.

02-16-05, 03:35 PM

FYI...
I just looked up the Standby power of a 4Gb Hitachi micro drive vs a 1Gb Sandisk SD card and a 2Gb Sandisk CF card.
I am assuming the Standby power is what the storage card uses when not reading or writing but plugged into the device.

The Hitachi 4Gb Microdrive has a Standby current of 16mA and 305mA during Read/Write.
The Sandisk 1Gb SD uses .25mA during Standby and 80mA during Read/Write.
The Sandisk 1Gb CF uses .2mA during Standby and 21mA Read/Write.

Clearly the microdrive uses much more power than the SD or CF cards during both Standby and Read/Write.

alias · 02-16-05, 09:21 PM

wow...that's impressive info...thanks...