Hitachi 6GB Microdrives

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has any one used Hitachi Microdrives? are they any good? and will they work with an EOS 1 D mark 2?
 
I haven't used one but I think milou borrowed one for a while, or something.

It seems to be the case that they work fine but they're slower than CF cards and you have to be more careful as they have moving parts. One of the best things about flash memory (CF cards, SD cards, Memory Sticks etc) is that you can chuck it out a car window at 80mph, stop, pick it up, dunk it in a flask of hot tea, put it in the fridge, dry it out, stick it in the computer and all the pictures are still there.

You definitely can't do that with a microdrive.
 
I have a 1gb IBM microdrive and a 4gb Hitachi one. The one gig I use daily and have had no issues with at all, the 4gb drive is a cheap backup that I have had an issue with once. To correct the issue I reformatted it in the pc and selected a different cluster size of 128 from memory, but its a while ago and I could be slightly wrong with the details.

Obviously they are not as fast as the latest cards and due to them having moving parts inside thay are more likely to fail, are more prone to knocks and bangs and take up slightly more power. It must be said that I know of people who have dropped MD's in the past and this has not affected them at all (Matt?) but I have also heard of people having a MD fail on them...but that also stands for all the major CF manufacturers as well.

Hope that helps.
 
fingerz said:
One of the best things about flash memory (CF cards, SD cards, Memory Sticks etc) is that you can chuck it out a car window at 80mph, stop, pick it up, dunk it in a flask of hot tea, put it in the fridge, dry it out, stick it in the computer and all the pictures are still there.

You definitely can't do that with a microdrive.
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I like to watch you do that with any of your CF cards and then happily replace it into your very expensive DSLR :thumb:

Obviously solid state technology is more robust but not to that extent ;)
 
I really don't know..probably not any more but when I bought mine yes they were alot cheaper than equivalant CF cards were at the time.
 
Steve said:
I like to watch you do that with any of your CF cards and then happily replace it into your very expensive DSLR :thumb:

Obviously solid state technology is more robust but not to that extent ;)
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Read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3939333.stm

The BBC said:
Five memory cards for digital cameras were subjected to a range of tests.

The formats were CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia.

They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child's toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy.

Perhaps surprisingly, all the cards survived these six tests.

Most of them did fail to get through two additional tests - being smashed by a sledgehammer and being nailed to a tree.

Even then, data experts Ontrack Data Recovery were able to retrieve photos from the xD and Smartmedia cards.
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In most instances MDs seem to be approx 10-20% cheaper than an equivalent level CF.

Was that on the BBC - I'm sure I watched something almost identical on The Gadget show, including the data recovery at the end;)

(I'm not questioning Fingerz BTW - I'm more skeptical about where the BBC gets its ideas for an article from, thats all :LOL: )
 
Steve said:
No, no I don't for a minute doubt that on occations this will work fine however suggesting that we subject our cards to that sort of treatment is just madness. If the testers want to do that with free stuff thats fine but what I wanted to see was YOU do it with one of yours and your camera :LOL:
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Sadist ^^^^^^ :nono:
 
I'll do it with the Kingston 1GB after I get a Sandisk Ultra II. Although I don't drink tea and I'm not sure where I could drive at 80mph and then stop to walk back and pick it up. Or even if I'd be able to find it.
 
fingerz said:
I'll do it with the Kingston 1GB after I get a Sandisk Ultra II. Although I don't drink tea and I'm not sure where I could drive at 80mph and then stop to walk back and pick it up. Or even if I'd be able to find it.
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How about you just send me the card for free and I'll take your word for it :nut: :p
 
fingerz said:
is the price of MDs really that competitive? You can get a 4GB CF card for about £150 these days.
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??? and what write-speed is that? The 4GB cards we buy are £300 (Sandisk Extreme III - 123x write-speed). And I carry eight of them, four per body. Gotta love the MoD!
 
It's the Kingston 'Elite pro' ones, Arkady. They're rubbish but at £150 (or thereabouts on eBay) for 4GB you can't really deny that they're filling a niche in the market. And I can't imagine that MicroDrives are much faster when it comes to write speed.

As for the Extreme IIIs.. They're barely any quicker than the Ultra IIs. At least not in a 20D, anyway. Might be different in a D2x.
 
Have a 4GB IBM MD that has worked perfectly to date...although must try that nail test ;)
 
We previously used Lexar Pro 512mb 80x cards and they were fine. I must say that the sooner I get a 19mb file off the buffer and onto the card, thae happier I am.
I lost about five potential images in Iraq due to the 1GB cards filling up too quickly. Had to wait for the buffer to empty before I switched cards and stuff was happening all around me - most annoying!
 
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