Compact Flash Vs. Micro Drives

dragon300zx

So which one is better compact flash or Micro Drives.

Andy

better is in the eye of the beholder

dragon300zx wrote:

So which one is better compact flash or Micro Drives.

dude - if you need to take a gajillion photos and write/read speed isn't important, then a 5gb micro drive is probably a good bet. if you are shooting wildlife, or sports, and you need fast write times, then fast cf is probably what you need.

cf are generally regarded as more reliable (md has moving parts etc) so there's that to figure on as well

dragon300zx

Yeah thats what I figured. Kinda sucks cause MD's are fairly inexpensive. Oh well good thing I bought the 1gb CF instead of the 2gb MD.

wxwax

I'm constantly tempted by the price/size ratio of the microdrives. But the slow write speeds would kill me.

cmr164

wxwax wrote:

I'm constantly tempted by the price/size ratio of the microdrives. But the slow write speeds would kill me.

The slow speeds are camera firmware issues. On the Kodak Pro models the Microdrives are nearly as fast as 80x CF cards. On the 1D Mark II the write speed is plenty fast enough. On the 300D the speed is terrible.

The MDs are very very reliable. if you factor in opening dslrs to change CF cards 2x or 4x more often than MDs then the microdrive/dslr is seriously more reliable as a combination.

ian408

wxwax wrote:

I'm constantly tempted by the price/size ratio of the microdrives. But the slow write speeds would kill me.

Microdrives also consume more power. And spinning the drive up probably
consumes more power than keeping it spinning.

All of which means you might need to consider extra batteries to take
advantage of the larger memory.

Ian

cmr164

ian408 wrote:

Microdrives also consume more power. And spinning the drive up probably
consumes more power than keeping it spinning.

All of which means you might need to consider extra batteries to take
advantage of the larger memory.

Ian

While they do consume more power, I have never had that be an issue, On the DCS 520 which had 2 slots, I had 2 * 1G Microdrives inserted at all times and I still got around 550 raw shots from a battery which was the manufacturer's rating.

On the 1D Mark II with the 4G microdrive I have never run down the battery even leaving the camera on for a week at a time and shooting +800 raw. I did switch batteries at the end of the week because I was tired of carrying the spare around while I waited for failure.

Kind of kick myself now for not canceling the order for the spare and saving the money.

Aaron Wilson

sad news!
I had a nice micro drive from ibm... 4G.. It was fast! I never once used up my buffer on my 20d... I shot 36 pics in raw and buffer still was ready to go.. loved the drive.. used it 4 times and it died on me... It was a oem... I got it off ebay.. come to find out the person took it out of a mp3 play.. now im trying to get it fixed.. so ig you go then buy it from a real store. I have also used wolf camera's brand og a 1g compact flash... said to say i nail about 10 pics and wait for the camera to write... the lexar 512mb 6.0mb transfer card is almost as fast as the ibm (hitachi) drive... but have bot test it on a 30 pic rapid fire shoot... most i have done was a 10 pic shoot so i can't say on it.. but it does seem to write faster then the store's brand. i have been told the 20D does not support the WA technolagy... but it sure does write faster then then wolf's brand. I hope I can get this microdrive working

PS. all photos were shoot in RAW mode.

cmr164

Aaron Wilson wrote:

I had a nice micro drive from ibm... 4G.. It was fast! I never once used up my buffer on my 20d... I shot 36 pics in raw and buffer still was ready to go.. loved the drive.. used it 4 times and it died on me... It was a oem... I got it off ebay.. come to find out the person took it out of a mp3 play.. now im trying to get it fixed.. so ig you go then buy it from a real store. I have also used wolf camera's brand og a 1g compact flash... said to say i nail about 10 pics and wait for the camera to write... the lexar 512mb 6.0mb transfer card is almost as fast as the ibm (hitachi) drive... but have bot test it on a 30 pic rapid fire shoot... most i have done was a 10 pic shoot so i can't say on it.. but it does seem to write faster then the store's brand. i have been told the 20D does not support the WA technolagy... but it sure does write faster then then wolf's brand. I hope I can get this microdrive working

PS. all photos were shoot in RAW mode.

Do not buy any kind of memory device from Ebay. It's an IQ test.

ysr612

I use the CF on the Oly E-20 they write slowly now I have a 20D and what a differance. The 20D writes at least twice as fast as the E-20.

mynakedsoda

cmr164 wrote:

Do not buy any kind of memory device from Ebay. It's an IQ test.

Huh? I've bought plenty of new Lexar 1gb 40x cards and a 2.2gb MD off of eBay. Never any problems.

cmr164

Dark Angel wrote:

Huh? I've bought plenty of new Lexar 1gb 40x cards and a 2.2gb MD off of eBay. Never any problems.

maybe... but the guy with a flakey one will sell it there and figure it will work for you for awhile

mynakedsoda

cmr164 wrote:

maybe... but the guy with a flakey one will sell it there and figure it will work for you for awhile

Good point. That's why I've never bought used memory.