What's the feeling on MicroDrives?

[justrick]

I recently picked up a 2.2GB MicroDrive that I'm using in my Axim X50v. I knew it would tank battery life (which it has), but I'm also finding that it seems to hang the device for upwards of a minute at a time (in varying circumstances). Plus, sometimes the Axim just plain doesn't read it--I have to pop it out and put it back in again.

Anyone else have any experiences--good, bad, or other--with MicroDrives? FWIW, I got this puppy new for about $60 on eBay; I'm willing to put up with a little bit of hassle for that kind of deal! :lol:

[SteveHoward999]

I have had exactly the same experience with mine.

Apparently it takes that minute or so to 'wake up' the microdrive. I think you can get some sort of keep-awake driver or setting. In 2003 SE there is a setting to keep cards powered when on standby that is supposed to reduce this delay. I'd expect it to kill battery life even more.


I thought I was willing to work around it too. I thought that 2.2 Gb was worth the hassle. I don't use the drive at all now unless I need to transfer large amounts of data between computers and I have no access to a network connection to enable the transfer. Even then, I'll write a CD first if I have that option.


Now I am waiting for 4 Gb SD or CF cards to come into my budget range.....
--

[yankeejeep]

Like all physical drives, MDs need to spin up if there is a certain amount of time between accesses. This differs from a flash memory card which has virtually instant access. It is conceivable that if it has been idle long enough, the OS may assume it has been removed. Believe it or not, your battery life would be much, much worse if the drive did not spin down when not in active use.

[PPC BLD]

Crap I just ordered one of these off ebay. Sooo.. once it freezes for a minute while spinning up, if I was to play a movie off of it, would it freeze again during the movie or is it fine as long as it's in use. Do you know how long it needs to be idle before it goes to sleep?

Someone track down that keep-awake driver you mentioned!

[justrick]

Crap I just ordered one of these off ebay. Sooo.. once it freezes for a minute while spinning up, if I was to play a movie off of it, would it freeze again during the movie or is it fine as long as it's in use. Do you know how long it needs to be idle before it goes to sleep?

Someone track down that keep-awake driver you mentioned!

In my experience, once it's recognized and "awake," it runs very smoothly and doesn't go back to sleep unless the PPC turns off. Even so, guess this was indeed too good to be true. I'd have to pay twice as much (around $125) to get a 2GB flash CF card.

[Steve Jordan]

With solid state memory getting tighter and tighter, I can't see the point of microdrives in a PDA at all. I just bought my second 1GB SD card at a decent price, and they'll only get cheaper and hold more as time goes by. Save the microdrives for smaller laptops... or more memory for the same size laptops.

PDA makers should try creating a device which holds (and accesses!) multiple SD cards at once. Then you could combine the memory of, say, 3-5 cards of different storage sizes... there's a way to get some use out of those older 32MB and 64MB cards that are just gathering dust after you bought the 512MB last year.

[justrick]

With solid state memory getting tighter and tighter, I can't see the point of microdrives in a PDA at all. I just bought my second 1GB SD card at a decent price, and they'll only get cheaper and hold more as time goes by. Save the microdrives for smaller laptops... or more memory for the same size laptops.

PDA makers should try creating a device which holds (and accesses!) multiple SD cards at once. Then you could combine the memory of, say, 3-5 cards of different storage sizes... there's a way to get some use out of those older 32MB and 64MB cards that are just gathering dust after you bought the 512MB last year.

I'm pretty happy with the two slots on the Axim X50v. I'm now carrying 3GB (2GB CF, 1GB SD), which is pretty frackin' cool. Will put the barely used 2.2GB Microdrive up on eBay--unless someone wants to offer me $50 outright for it. :D

[Steve Jordan]

I'm now carrying 3GB (2GB CF, 1GB SD), which is pretty frackin' cool.

OOOoooooohhhhhmmmmmm..... storage...............
:drool:

[jammie*dodger]

Hmmm, 2.2Gb

It's not branded Xstor is it?

Rob.

[Don't Panic!]

I like microdrives been using them since my E-125. IBM 1GB, Hitachi 4 and 6GB models so far. I've read nothing but problems about the Magistor 2.2GB Microdrive with Pocket PCs. Apperently they work really well in dogital cameras but on Pocket PCs they are a hit or miss affair.

[The PocketTV Team]

I never had any problems with Microdrives, I have used them for years, and I have 6 of them, from 340 MB to 6 GB.

I have used only IBM, Hitachi and Seagate Microdrives. The best are IBM and Hitachi (Seagate is slower to get ready when it spins up, not sure why).

For large storage, Microdrives are about half the price of Solid State, but they use more battery if they spin continuously.

Normally it takes only about one second for the drive to spin up, and if the application that you use is correctly programmed, you should not even feel it because the buffering is done in the background by a separate thread. Applications that are correctly designed also only spin the disk from time to time, so the battery drain is minimum.

The new 6GB from Hitachi is currently on sell at Dell, see http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119835

I have never tried the Magistor, maybe its firmware is not as good as the Hitachi. Also, maybe it was not as well tested by the Pocket PC manufacturer, too.

> With solid state memory getting tighter and tighter, I can't see the point of microdrives in a PDA at all.

I don't think you can get 6GB in solid state for less than $200.

[Msabene]

This week, CompUSA has a 4GB Centon SpinDrive for $84.99 after a $45 mail-in rebate and $40 instant savings (product number 317017). I opened the SpinDrive and inside there's a 4GB Magistor minidrive (model GS1040A-SP) that appears to be CF type II. I haven't attempted to remove the CF minidrive, yet...

Has anybody tested this type of minidrive on a PDA?

[JPD6825]

I've got the Magicstor 2.2GB µDrive. A few weeks ago it started giving me trouble -- seeming to constipate my PPC. And then I actually got a message from WMP about a wmv being corrupt / unreadable. I reformatted the devil while in my desktop... then reloaded with the movies and music I had on it. A big improvement! Still haven't used it enough to be completely sure I have the problems licked -- I'll let you know how it goes.