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1GB Compactflash vs. Microdrive

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Art L.

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Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price seems to be almost the same.
 
Art L. said:
Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB
compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price
seems to be almost the same.
Click to expand...
If the price is about the same, why even bother with the microdrive? The microdrive takes more power and isn't solid-state (more easily damaged).

--
Photographing my universe!
http://homepage.mac.com/dudesteve/photography
 
I've never noticed any battery difference with the microdrive compared to flash. I notice a huge difference in speed...the microdrive seems extremely slow after using flash memory. If you own microdrives - don't try compact flash, it will depress you to see the speed difference.

--
Canon 10D, bag includes 100mm Macro, 70-200mm L, 17-35mm L, 50mm f/1.8.
 
Art L. said:
Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB
compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price
seems to be almost the same.
Click to expand...
I would rather buy a 10G photo wallet about 260. That is much useful than a 1G drive. support Firewire.
 
My Sandisk 1GB CF is slower than the 1GB Microdrive (MD), on both the D60 and the 10D.

Even the Canon 256MB High Speed CF is slightly slower than the MD. The High Speed CF is faster than the MD during playback, but that's less important to me. See
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos10d/page11.asp
MMalleck said:
I've never noticed any battery difference with the microdrive
compared to flash. I notice a huge difference in speed...the
microdrive seems extremely slow after using flash memory. If you
own microdrives - don't try compact flash, it will depress you to
see the speed difference.

--
Canon 10D, bag includes 100mm Macro, 70-200mm L, 17-35mm L, 50mm
f/1.8.
Click to expand...
 
...if you've got no CF cards or, say, a 16 Mb card and want to shoot RAW on a 10D.

Best to buy something like the photo wallet AFTER buying a sufficiently large memory card to shoot several images in one session before having to download.

David
Minxin Bao said:
Art L. said:
Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB
compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price
seems to be almost the same.
Click to expand...
I would rather buy a 10G photo wallet about 260. That is much
useful than a 1G drive. support Firewire.
Click to expand...
 
MMalleck:

Can you share with us which CF card was faster than which Microdrive?

Thom
MMalleck said:
I've never noticed any battery difference with the microdrive
compared to flash. I notice a huge difference in speed...the
microdrive seems extremely slow after using flash memory. If you
own microdrives - don't try compact flash, it will depress you to
see the speed difference.

--
Canon 10D, bag includes 100mm Macro, 70-200mm L, 17-35mm L, 50mm
f/1.8.
Click to expand...
 
With USB2.0 SanDisk CF reader. Download speed is pretty good. 2600kB/sec for reading. And writing is 960kB/sec.
 
1GB 30x compact flash = Fast
1GB Microdrive = slow
1GB 30x compact flash = robust
1GB 30x microdrive = fragile

Transend 1GB CF cards can be had for US$247.50 at
http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au
with excellent service and fast shipping...
Where is the comparision?
Art L. said:
Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB
compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price
seems to be almost the same.
Click to expand...
 
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/digi4me/tran1gb30xul.html

I bought a couple of these 1GB Transcend cards for my D60 and 10D. They seem so fast, they made me put my 1GB Microdrive in the drawer. I am not associated with this vendor in any way. They delivered quickly.

--Ken S.
 
Bought a 1GB microdrive a few years ago when they first came out and haven't really felt performance was much of an issue (owned/used a number of drives and CFs cards since). Then again I don't trouble the buffer flushing by shooting rapid sports sequences etc. What is an issue is fragility - have had a number of read/write 'hiccups' that have required low-level tools to recover images but none with any of my CFs. If price per MB is roughly the same, go for the CF. Whether it's being dropped or simply disconnected prematurely from PCMCIA or USB adapters, the microdrives don't seem as robust. Now if there were a 10 or 20GB drive at a good pricepoint, that'd be a different matter...
Art L. said:
Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB
compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price
seems to be almost the same.
Click to expand...
 
I just ordered one of these through warehouse.com. I was one of these guys who got shafted over the 28-135 zoom fiasco and to make up for it, the kind folks there not only matched Amazon's price for this ($281) but beat it by a fair amount. You have to call for the discounted price. Lexar's a proven product with benchmarks to back up their performance claims. I tested a 16x card and a 36x in a 10D and the difference is about 1.5 seconds in write speed per image I think, at 6MP JPEG size. Score one through Linda at x30435 if interested.

waruilewi
Ken Sarno said:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/digi4me/tran1gb30xul.html

I bought a couple of these 1GB Transcend cards for my D60 and 10D.
They seem so fast, they made me put my 1GB Microdrive in the
drawer. I am not associated with this vendor in any way. They
delivered quickly.

--Ken S.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry - it was not the 1GB, but smaller compact flash. I did not mean to mislead on the 1GB flash...

It was a Sandisk. I traded with a friend who was going on a trip. Smaller size - 512MB I believe for one of my 1GB microdrives. I figured he could use the extra memory for his vacation.

I found that the buffer cleared faster, and viewing pictures was much faster. I have two 1GB microdrives. I have since given the flash card back so I can't provide more info, but I was very happy with the flash card compared to the MD performance. So much so that I was thinking about selling my MDs in exchange for flash.
Thomas Karlmann said:
Can you share with us which CF card was faster than which Microdrive?

Thom
MMalleck said:
I've never noticed any battery difference with the microdrive
compared to flash. I notice a huge difference in speed...the
microdrive seems extremely slow after using flash memory. If you
own microdrives - don't try compact flash, it will depress you to
see the speed difference.

--
Canon 10D, bag includes 100mm Macro, 70-200mm L, 17-35mm L, 50mm
f/1.8.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I've used microdrives for years now and have never had one failure. I wouldn't categorize them and being very fragile. Maybe extra care is good in handling - and wouldn't want to sqeeze one. But, I've had them drop on the floor and get bounced around a bit without any probs.
---------------------------
Paul Pope said:
Transend 1GB CF cards can be had for US$247.50 at
http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au
with excellent service and fast shipping...
Where is the comparision?
Art L. said:
Was wondering what people's experience were with the 1 GB
compactflash vs. the microdrive with the 10D. Pros & cons? Price
seems to be almost the same.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Canon 10D, bag includes 100mm Macro, 70-200mm L, 17-35mm L, 50mm f/1.8.
 
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