Transcend or Microdrive

Just received my d100 the other day. Any thoughts on which is better, the transcend 512mb. card or 1gb. microdrive. Are the microdrives just as reliable?

I, personally will not use microdrives for 5 reasons:

1. Moving parts - prone to mechanical failure
2. Higher battery consumption than CF (often negligable, though)
3. Not nearly as shock resistant as CF

4. Although technically capable of very high transfer speeds, the microdrives are slower in the d series cameras than a high-speed CF

5. Size. This is very subjective, but I don't like using anything over 512MB. Something about putting too many eggs in 1 basket. Probably only my personal paranoia.

Hope this helps a bit...

Pilot_Diver said:

Just received my d100 the other day. Any thoughts on which is
better, the transcend 512mb. card or 1gb. microdrive. Are the
microdrives just as reliable?

Click to expand...

I have been successfully using the Transcend 512's in a D100 with no compatibility problems of any kind. The microdrives are reliable enough but despite the individual accounts you will hear from people on this forum the mechanical memory is less rugged and reliable than the solid state. If maximum reliability is the goal solid state is what is needed. The brand X CF solid state memory should not be counted on to be as reliable though.

Regards,Charlie

Hi All

Obviously there are tradeoff's with either device. I use two 1 gig microdrives and I've had no problems. Yesterday I used a 640 Meg Lexar card and didn't notice much slowdown in-camera, but when I got home it took twice as long to download to the computer!

After following these kinds of threads for 4 months in seems to me that about 5 percent of Microdrive owners run into serious problems.

As far as resistance to shock - This is again, not a problem in-camera. Just don't use the damn thing as a frisbee which apparently can be done with the CF cards.

All in all I've found the increased speed to be worth it.

Dave

charlie gast said:

I have been successfully using the Transcend 512's in a D100 with
no compatibility problems of any kind. The microdrives are reliable
enough but despite the individual accounts you will hear from
people on this forum the mechanical memory is less rugged and
reliable than the solid state. If maximum reliability is the goal
solid state is what is needed. The brand X CF solid state memory
should not be counted on to be as reliable though.

Regards,Charlie

Click to expand...

No! no microdrive, get the transcend. You will save yourself alot of worry.

• Andrew

generalizations are great, but i recommend you make a reasoned decision.

yes, theoretically solid state is more durable than mechanical. but that is ONLY a rule of thumb. the actual implementation of any technology is more important than any baseline theoretical performance thresholds. stating the generalization that mechanical is not as robust as solid state is not useful in any specific instance. compare the MTBF, vibration, and shock ratings for the microdrive against the solid state cards you are interested in.

there are differences -- some not in the MD's favor. but if this is all one looks at, they are missing the big picture and an opportunity to take advantage of useful & cheap technology. for instance, if you want the MD's speed but are put off by the fact that it has 40% less resistance to shock WHILE OPERATING, then ask yourself: how often am i going to dropkick my camera while taking a picture?

check out the ratings of the cards you are interested in and compare the reliability ratings. some are not as good as the MD. many are rated higher. but then you can decide if the differences apply to you.

MD Specs:
Error Rate:
MTBF Load/Unload Cycles: 300,000
Shock (half sine wave) (Operating) 175 G (2 ms) (non-op) 1500 G (1 ms)
Vibration (random [RMS]) (Op) 0.67 G (5 to 500 Hz) (non-op) 3.01G (5 to 500 Hz)

Vibration (swept sine) (Op) 1 G 0-peak (5 to 500 Hz) (non-op) 5G 0-peak (10 to 500 Hz)

Pilot_Diver said:

Just received my d100 the other day. Any thoughts on which is
better, the transcend 512mb. card or 1gb. microdrive. Are the
microdrives just as reliable?

Click to expand...

As I replied to an earlier post , I just got a transcend 512 25x pro

from mydigitaldiscount.com for $219. ( free shipping ) . According to their specs , anyway , its much faster than even the ridata , don't know , but it works fine in my D100, and is VERY fast indeed. Don't know about the miro-drive , and don't want to , moving parts , ya know ?

I've been using the Microdrive - 2 of them since July 2, the day I got my D100 without any problems.

I understand people's concerns via moving parts, but would like to remind you that you are going to take just as good a care of the drives as your camera.

As to speed, I did a timed comparison of a Sandisk CF and my Microdrive in my D100. The Microdrive was faster.

The biggest bang for the buck are the Microdrives in terms of cost per gb.

Cost of the 1 gig bare drive is about $235.00. Same amount of CF storage is almost twice that much.

If yo decide to shoot RAW, a 1 gig drive will only hold 107 images, or 53 images on a 512 CF. Not enough to survive on one gig IMNSHO.

Visit the storage forum and Phils comparisons. This is as pationate a discussion as which camera to buy!!!!!

The Shadow

Got my microdrive for about 1 month. So far have no problem. I still get 7 continues jepg shot and after that about 3 second per shot.

Yes, it does run about 10-15% slower than CF when recording all 7 shots. but for the price of 512mb CF with double capacity. I can live with that.

JH

Pilot_Diver said:

Just received my d100 the other day. Any thoughts on which is
better, the transcend 512mb. card or 1gb. microdrive. Are the
microdrives just as reliable?

Click to expand...