Talk:Microdrive

Untitled
The latest developments are drives with capacity of 6GB and there are talks of even higher capacity in the future (8GB-10GB). With the advent of mp3 players, the microdrive has seen a resurgence in popularity, because it can offer higher storage capacity at a lower price point than CF cards or any other storage media of comparable size. They are indeed cheaper than CF, but only the current models. sometimes they are half price of a CF card. [] vs []
 * iPods can't use them, they aren't cheaper than CF, they aren't larger than CF. Both ends of their niche have evaporated, unfortunately. A Man In Black 03:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
 * iPods CAN in fact use the MicroDrive. The iPod mini in fact uses a 4-6GB MicroDrive from Hitachi. And for the price to storage ratio, MicroDrives are cheaper than other CompactFlash memory cards (also, MicroDrives are technically CompactFlash (although that is usually considered a misnomer because it isn't really flash memory) because CompactFlash is a type of standard for that memory card interface. MicroDrives, which are CompactFlash Type II, are also marginally larger than the traditional CompactFlash Type I. Next time, do your research.(Myscrnnm 06:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC))


 * It'd be interesting to read more about the technology behind these, how the are similar and differ from normal hard disks, etc.--80.203.86.81 13:24, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

170MB model
This comment was left in the article by an anonymous user:
 * Where does the 170MB model fit into the above timeline? See http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/B00004YKN4

I was wondering the same thing myself - I have a 170MB Microdrive in my camera right now, so it was released. Was it released before the 340MB model, or at the same time? --Vclaw 19:21, 14 October 2005

I believe I was the person who left the above question -- having done a little research it seems fairly clear that the 170MB and 340MB were released at the same time: http://www.d-store.com/d-store/microtech/ibmmicrodrive/170spec.pdf --pbx

Inside?
What does the inside of one look like? Ilikefood 16:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's the same as any old HDD, but minitiaturized, and usually with shock-resistant components in the casing to prevent damage.(Myscrnnm 06:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

Irrelevent info in 'Applications'
The following line: Microdrives are popular with professional photographers, who take advantage of their multi-gigabyte capacity to be able to store high-resolution, print-quality photographs without too much concern about storage space.

...Has largely been rendered moot by current technology, Microdrives are significantly lagging behind current portable media standards for flash cards like Sony's MS, SD, Micro SD and XD Picture Cards which are now available in sizes as large as 16GB. For these reasons it's not appropriate to say pro photographers would prefer Microdrives as the above media is cheaper, smaller and far more widespread and flexible, so I'm removing it.

Feel free to voice any objections here.

Gamer112 (talk) 16:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The statement IDE adaptors are inexpensive as they have no integrated circuits like the PCMCIA adaptors. is incorrect in my opinion - CF to PCMCIA adapters do not have integrated circuits either, they adapt the CF to the PCMCIA/CardBus form factor and simply run wires from the CF pins to the PCMCIA pins.

TheGiantHogweed (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

What about Calluna?
Calluna (of Scotland) were developing and producing this type of drive way before IBM and the others arrived on the scene yet they don't get a mention!

  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.161.231 (talk) 16:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The Callunacard was basically the same idea - but in a double-height PCMCIA-sized enclosure. The older Kodak DCS digital SLRs could use them. The Microdrive stands out because it was so much smaller. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 11:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

It's 2014!
Though it probably won't be in the future, when this article's still hanging round like an un-needed, blood-starved and dead internal organ.

The Microdrive was a nice idea but is now completely obsolete. Perhaps the article should be re-written from this point of view, that of a museum piece. Or perhaps we could fix the other three-quarters of Wikipedia first.

188.29.165.177 (talk) 02:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not 2014. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 11:46, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Other major uses of Microdrives, other than iPods
The Rio Carbon MP3 player used a Microdrive. When Rio went out of business, a large amount of Carbon players were on eBay, minus their drives that had been removed for sale separately. Palm Inc used a 4 gig Hitachi Microdrive in the LifeDrive PDA, which caused a slew of negative reviews from consumers after Palm had sent pre-release units to tech writers with the higher performance 5 gig Seagate version, which garnered Palm excellent reviews. The Hitachi had a lower maximum transfer speed and only 128K cache VS Seagate's 2 megabyte cache. Bizzybody (talk) 11:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Added by The Holm 26 Jan 2016 - Nokia made Nokia N91 a Symbian based phone with microdrive.

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16 GB model??
The article suggests that a 16 GB unit existed, but provides no details, nor can I find any evidence of one existing. Where did this claim come from? 156.34.90.100 (talk) 07:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)