With early hard drives, one needed to designate a "parking spot" for the
read write heads. As time went on, that requirement was eliminated. It's
automatic when the drive is not funtioning (reading/writing) or when the
power is shut off.
I remember accidently dropping a Conner drive (425MB IDE) from a
handfull of materials I was carrying up several flights of stairs. It
bounced down two flights before coming to a stop. To my amazment that
drive still worked flawlessly. I ran it originally in a 386 40Mhz AMD,
then a 75Mhz Pentium, then a 166Mhz Pentium, then a 266Mhz Pentium and
gave it to a friend with enough parts to build a 486 100Mhz desktop. It's
still running!!
) I would never purposely drop a drive of any sort. None
the less, the bouncing that early Conner drive was subjected to while
suffering no damage, was amazing. Apparently the thing was tougher than
stated in the info supplied with the drive. I could have just "lucked
out"!
While studying advance PC maintainance, I was amazed to learn that a
particle of smoke was sufficient to damage the surfaces of a disk in a
hard drive. The read write heads run very, very, very close to the disk
surface. In a floppy, the read write heads rest on the iron oxide plastic
disk surface. Perhaps the new Microdrives funtion in this manner also? If
that were true, then a bump wouldn't have much effect in causing disk
surface damage.
I was always taught to never move the Computer case containg the drive
while it is working. Knowing that, does create some concern regarding the
reliability of these "Microdrives". As you stated, what happens if a you
get bumped, or worse, kicked hard and sent tumbling while the drive is
writing data from the memory buffer?
I've been to IBMs site and the info regarding the force to mess one up is
almost the same, if not exactly, as the static CF I type drives. IBM
doesn't state whether their figures reflect that this imapact resistant
figure is the same when the drive is working, or merely an expression of
what the drive will stand up to while it is in a static state.
To date, I have seen no Post or discussions or articles regarding this
question. I'd like an informative answer to it myself. Anyone who knows
please advise.
As far as rates are concerned: I've seen prices of around $400 to $500
for a 340MB. I like the looks of the Microtech USB card reader, which
will read type I, II and also Smartmedia. It's drivers seem to be very
stable. It's about $80 to $100 depending on where one purchases it.
There's other options. Check out Steve's Digicams. He has an excellent
section regarding storage medium. There's a link here at this site on the
links page.
In addition, a 256MB type one will be coming before much longer. It's
type I CF and is about $100 to $200 bucks cheaper than a Microdrive. It's
also a hard disk type storage.
This Microdrive "hard disk" type storage has been around a sufficient
amount of time to bring up "post" or "articles" regarding problems
associated with damaged disk and consequently data. I haven't seen any.
Time will tell. Maybe someone else knows for sure?
Regarding the IBM microdrive, because it is an actual drive and has
moving parts inside its casing... in terms of reliability and
durability, how much more so is it compared with other flash media such
as compactflash, smartmedia, and memory stick? If one were to drop the
drive, would it mean that all info is lost on it? If one were to bump
his/her camera while in the process of reading/writing onto the disk,
would it mean corrupt or lost data?
Because of its size and speed, I am very interested in buying a camera
that accepts the CP Flash Slot II/III size media.
Btw, how much would the going rate be for a 340mb microdrive along with
a PC Reader come out to be at the current market price?
Any input would be great!
Btw, any suggest any disadvantage with this technology??
Cheers
