MicroDrive & Toshiba e805

[DiGiTYZED]

Can those MicroDrives work on my Toshiba e805 compact flash slot? If so, even those 4 GB+ ones?

TIA

[Fishie]

Yup.

[Janak Parekh]

At the cost of battery life, of course. ;)

--janak

[DiGiTYZED]

why? because of the hard drive spinning?

so basically it will really drain battery life if I'm playing games, emulators (snes, gameboy advanced, etc), music or videos off a 4 gb microdrive? shouldn't even bother doing that, huh?

[Janak Parekh]

so basically it will really drain battery life if I'm playing games, emulators (snes, gameboy advanced, etc), music or videos off a 4 gb microdrive? shouldn't even bother doing that, huh?
Depends on what you do. If you use a program that does sustained access, then yes, the drain will be huge. For example, playing movies with WMP will drain your battery flat in a fraction of the regular time.

Now, some media players have caching ability, so they can read from the Microdrive into the RAM, and then let the Microdrive go to sleep. That will mitigate battery drain much more effectively, although there will still be some drop in battery life.

--janak

[yankeejeep]

If battery life is a concern, your better choice would be one of the larger-capacity CF memory cards, which use far less power than a microdrive. You need to remember it's a memory card, though, not a disk that has data recorded in physical form. And a memory card that runs out of juice is just too light to be a good paperweight.

[Janak Parekh]

You need to remember it's a memory card, though, not a disk that has data recorded in physical form. And a memory card that runs out of juice is just too light to be a good paperweight.
What do you mean by "physical form"? Data on a hard disk is a magnetic field, and not a whole lot more. I think it's a toss-up to say which is more reliable.

--janak

[yankeejeep]

Not really. Data on a hard disk is arranged magnetically, but it does involve placement on a physical surface that doesn't require continuous power to maintain it. As long as the surface retains it's magnetic state, the data remains intact. The reading and writing process over time degrades the surface and when it eventually demagnetizes (which takes quite a while), the data is gone. But that is not an issue of battery life, it's the nature of the surface. If the microdrives do not involve physical placement, they're not disks at all but just another form of flash memory.

Memory cards are pretty much electricity and when their power source is exhausted, so are they. But they require so little power that it takes quite a while to exhaust them, especially if the PPC maintains power to them when it is off.

[Janak Parekh]

Memory cards are pretty much electricity and when their power source is exhausted, so are they. But they require so little power that it takes quite a while to exhaust them, especially if the PPC maintains power to them when it is off.
Whoa, wait a second. Are you talking about the DRAM in a Pocket PC (which will die without power), or flash memory itself? Flash memory has a pretty solid shelf life -- a quick Google search yields that both Intel and AMD rate their flash memory as having no data retention issues within a 20-year lifespan, while Sandisk has been quoted as going much farther for a flash memory card's shelf life. I've certainly had flash cards out for many months on end without any data loss. If you need lifespans greater than 20 years, I certainly wouldn't trust magnetic media either.

If your numbers contradict this, got a link?

--janak

[yankeejeep]

No, we're talking about memory cards (CF, SDIO) that depend on power flow to keep them alive, not real flash ROM.

[Janak Parekh]

No, we're talking about memory cards (CF, SDIO) that depend on power flow to keep them alive, not real flash ROM.
Again, please provide a link for this. A quick Google search finds many CompactFlash products that advertise "zero-power" data retention. Here's one such technical specification (http://www.pretec.com/index2/product/SSD/ATA_Tech_Specs/Hitachi%20SAH%2005/CFcard/28.CompactFlash%20Card%20Series%20S-CH05.pdf). I personally have used a number of flash products which have not had power for an extended period of time without data loss.

--janak

[Kati Compton]

No, we're talking about memory cards (CF, SDIO) that depend on power flow to keep them alive, not real flash ROM.
CF and SD cards are "real" flash memory. I'm not sure what else they would be, given that you can take the card out, let it sit for a while, put it back in, and the data is still there.

[Muze]

So CF cards do or don't retain their memory when they aren't receiving power??

[Kati Compton]

So CF cards do or don't retain their memory when they aren't receiving power??
They do retain their memory.