IBM 4GB Microdrive.

[eyespy]

I have the chance to purchase an IBM 4GB Microdrive for £110 (208$). This would be for use with my E300. Is anyone using one of these cards - do they work OK or should I give it a miss?
Advice appreciated - Thanks.

--
If it moves shoot it
eyespy.

 

[gerrut]

I would buy two 2 Gb CF's (or a 4 Gb one) if I were you as those are faster and less power consuming.

 

[Ben Herrmann]

Realizing that there's one in every bunch (could relate to both "things" and humans), I bought two Hitachi 4 Gig Microdrives a few months ago. During the very first shoot with one of the cards in my E-1, I captured over 3 Gigs worth of images - with compositions that would be difficult to replicate because of the events concerned.

Well, all of a sudden the card dies...and I mean "dead." The microdrive was jammed and would not spin. Nothing - including software, trying to read it in-camera, etc., would save it. It was a total loss - after the very first try.

So for me, I now only purchase compact flash cards. Granted, using the law of averages, some CF cards can also go "kaput," but there is a greater risk among the "moving parts" variety such as microdrives.

2 Gig CF cards are tremendously cheap now - so look around. You may very well be glad you did.

 

[AJR]

I'm sure there are horror stories for every type of storage device, including this one. The best you're going to get here is anecdotal evidence, which is extremely unreliable. For what it's worth, I have had one of these cards for well over a year, used it as my primary storage device for my E1, and it has performed flawlessly. Maybe an HD-based device takes a bit more coddling than a solid-state, but you can't tell it by me. If I were you, I'd look at price/MB and decide on this basis.

 

[UTAH DAVE]

I agree 100% with Ben and also it's a no brainer because good compact

flash has lifetime free replacement while microdrive warranty is 1 year at

best!

 

[tchatila]

I am currently using one in my E-1 and have been for 3 months and over 1000 photos. So far, I must say I love it. I got mine (Hitachi 4gb - same as IBM I believe) for $165 on Amazon.com, shipped.

If you don't want to read through all of this here is my summary:

Pro's: Great Value, Huge amount of Storage available, Faster than standard solid state media.

Con's: Admittedly not as tough (although it hasn't failed me), not as fast as Scandisk Ultra line

Would I buy it again over solid state media - Definitely

I do understand that it is not as "tough" as solid state media but at the time a fast card was running about $400 for the same GB and a slow 4gb was still in the $300 range. I was getting by with 2 512's and really needed more storage as I moved in to shooting more RAW. With the 512's I was getting 47 RAW images per card. With the 4 gb card I get 379 RAW images.

Having that many images available to me on one card, I have been treating it as "embedded" memory. The microdrive has only been out of the E-1 twice since I bought it. This keeps it safe from dropping and mishandling. I hook the camera up to the computer when I want to transfer photos.

I think the microdrive technology that has matured over many generations and I am fairly certain it will give me years of great service with no problem. I haven't really noticed much of a difference in power drain but I have noticed that while it is faster than my "slow" Compact Flash memory, it is not as fast as my Scandisk Ultra II cards. In fact it is about 30% slower (yes, I am anal and I timed it). This hasn't been a problem for me since the E-1 has a 12 shot buffer and that is usually good enough for me. But if you shoot in a lot of situations where you would shoot 12 and want to shoot another 12 as soon as possible then may be you need to look elsewhere.

--
Tarek

 

[gerrut]

But microdrives are much more vulnerable to defects because of the moving parts. And you definitely can't nail them to a tree, put them in a washing machine and still use them like they did with flashcards for test purposes.

 

[eyespy]

Well I took the plunge and bought it. I'm off on holiday in a couple of weeks and needed something more than my 1GB card and at £27.50 per gig the price was right.

It worked straight off so lets hope it continues to do so. As for timings, my 1GB Kingston CF clears the buffer (4 frames RAW) in 13 seconds - the Microdrive does it in 17, so not as fast but good enough.
If I have no pics to show after my hols you can all yell "we told you so"!

--
If it moves shoot it
eyespy.

 

[new8080]

I just leave it in the camera all the time and use a USB to download. It's a little slower that way but I'm not in a big hurry.