Hi Derek,

Excellent response, most informative. I had already figured it would be 
a power hog.

Btw, whilst I have your attention, here's a heads up, wheres my ECSv1.2 
which I ordered/paid for a few week ago.?

Thanks

Derek W. Keoughan wrote:

>  
>
>>In , on 10/28/2004 
>>  at 09:08 PM, Kevin Johnson  said:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hi anyone any opinions on the magicstor microdrives 2.2 gig,  CF+ II, 
>>>with a name like that you know from whence they come, like everything
>>>else.
>>>      
>>>
>>>Maybe they are so new is why I cannot seem to find any reviews, but at 
>>>$84us, maybe it's a good gamble?
>>>      
>>>
>
>You don't mention what you're going to use the card for, but speaking
>as a amateur photography buff who's taken over 10 000 pictures (yes,
>really!) with digital cameras in the last three years - who has used
>both Microdrives (Iomega and IBM, 340MB - both actually made by IBM)
>and standard CF Flash cards - I can tell you without reservation NOT to
>buy a Microdrive... at US$84, it's VERY tempting - but they just don't
>have the durability... they're SO small, they get fumbled and dropped
>very easily.
>
>My Iomega 340MB is now useless because of sector failures, and the IBM,
>like the Iomega when it worked - sucks battery power like crazy.  Since
>it's a physical hard drive as opposed to solid-state memory, there's
>power required to spin it up, write it, read it... and it just drains
>batteries at a much higher rate than CF cards.
>
>You should also note that many (most?) digital cameras use FAT to
>record to these media - and thus, anything above 2GB will not be
>usable, anyway...  (who'd have thought we'd ever be talking about
>partitioning removable memory?)
>
>You're eventually going to own $84 worth of junk unless it gets
>completely babied for its entire lifespan... I've given up on
>Microdrives completely and gone with Kingston Elite Pro 512MB CF
>cards... about 80% of the cost you mentioned, and only 1/4 the
>capacity, but MUCH more durable.  At the Toronto Air Show in September,
>I took 285 pictures on a single 512MB card with a 6.3Mpixel camera.
>
>In terms of speed, I ran an unscientific test - but basically, copied
>and verified a 280,829,952 byte file to the drive, using a USB 2.0 card
>reader, and a batch file to automate the time display at the start and
>stop of each run...
>
>IBM 340MB Microdrive - 4m 4s  (244s)
>
>Kingston CF/512 card - 5m 15s (315s)
>
>Kingston CF-512-S Elite Pro card - 3m 28s (208s)
>
>The Microdrive is 17% slower than the faster flash card - maybe not a
>concern if you're taking pictures slowly - especially with a camera
>that won't write fast enough to matter, but if you're using it to
>transfer files between machines, or for backups... well, that time is
>going to add up.  Bear in mind that's only a small portion of the total
>capacity, so that lag will increase as the data transfer size goes up.
>
>Maybe the newer versions have increased the transfer speed, I don't
>know - but the lack of durability and the power requirements tilt the
>Microdrive out of favour for me.
>
>
>Of course - it depends on your need, your usage, and your tolerance for
>waiting. :)
>
>Hope this helps!
>
>-Derek
>
>
>
>Derek W. Keoughan,
>Finnegan Software, Inc.,  Brampton, Ontario, Canada  http://www.finnsoft.com
>416-410-4774 phone - 800-258-0033 toll free - 905-846-5516 fax
>
>Consulting, Networking, Cabling, Internet, Hardware, Software, Tech Support
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Installations and Upgrades
>
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