CF card vs Micro drive

I was out today looking at the 4gb microdrive around 100.00 I was going to get

it till i learned that they say if you drop it is trash. Or you can spend

200.00 and up on 4gb cf card . what are your thoughts on this?

The micro drive draws much more power and has moving parts. That's why it's $100 - it's

obsolete technology.

My Magistor microdrive has been replaced 1x during warranty, is slow, drains lots of energy and provides a writing error each time I use it in my DSLR long before reaching the entire capacity.

 

If you want affordable memory get noname 1GB CFs from evilbay. I don't know the going rate but recently got a boxed 1GB SD for 18 Euro including rip of shiping & handling and 16% tax. With luck and patience your $100 might buy 4GB of CFs too. Changing through them might be still faster than cursing a ****ing Microdrive, when it breaks down the 3rd time during a shoot, makes you pull out your battery and hope for your camera recognizeing free space and not a card error...

YMMV. AFAIK CFs are washable, so don't care about storing them as long as your pockets are well patched.

Here in Taiwan, 4GB CF cards sell for a little over $100 (maybe $110 - I'm not sure of the exact exchange rate). I'd guess that they'll be a similar price in the US in a couple of months, so just be patient. :-)

<i>They take more power than flash memory - watch your batteries. Honestly, I've never had a problem out of my Hitachi 4GB microdrive. I've never ran my battery down using it for hundreds of pictures in a single day. High capacity models are usually much cheaper than flash-based counterparts. I've heard some people complain about microdrives's susceptability to breaking. I've also heard lots of others say they've used them for years and never had a problem. I think, like any electronic device, things break sometimes. I've found mine to be a quality device and will likely buy more.</i>

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My experience has been the same as Eric's. No problems. I will add that I leave it in the camera, less chance of dropping &/or other handling problems. Always using the USB to connect. d.d.

Cf card is solid state, while micro drive is like a hard disk, not all microdrives are bad and not all cf cards are good either. If you have an experience with hard disk crash or bad sectors in your p.c. you'll understand why I'm staying away from microdrive.

I dropped my Hitachi 4GB microdrive on a concrete floor, about 3 feet vertical, and the drive is fine. I have *heard* that Magicstore drives are fragile, and that Seagate drives are exasperatingly slow. I don't know if either is true, but the Hitachi is neither. It's quite fast actually, and I have not noticed any increased battery consumption. I know it's there, It just not enough to be an issue.

 

However, I recently bought two high speed (150x) 2GB cards on ebay for $55 each, and that was with shipping to Alaska. I don't know if they will prove to be as reliable, but logic would indicate more durability, and they are faster. So I no longer recommend Microdrives. I'm not opposed to them, but their great price advantage seems to have dissapeared.

Spinny hard drive things like this are guaranteed to fail. When it comes to things I need to rely on, less moving parts are better.

 

I guess it depends on how important your images are to you. Mine, it isn't worth the cost.

 

BTW: I buy my media here. http://www.supermediastore.com/compactflashcard-cfcard-compact-flash.html

 

4Gb CF for $110. 8Gb for $189. No spinny breaky parts.

 

No, they're not Adorama or BHPhoto, but I've been very successful buying from them. My experiences has been that they ship what they advertise, no fuss, quickly.

 

Note I have nothing to do with them (other than bought stuff).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820208049

I use both CF and Microdrives.

 

My oldest Microdrive is 4 years old and I have never had any problems with it.

 

I treat my CF cards and Microdrives like the rest of my camera equipment and try not to drop them.

YMMV

 

Michael