CF cards for 1Ds : Microdrive or Solid state ?

DickBrussee · #1 12-21-2002, 04:06 AM

I'm not sure what to do : Buy another microdrive or buy a "real" cf card. Are the "real" cf cards more reliable, or doesn't it make any difference... And what about speed. When I look at the tests, the microdrive does very well I think... What do you think ?
Is IBM working on a new microdrive with more memory space ? The 1Ds eats up all the memory...

MarkKay · #2 12-21-2002, 08:28 AM

Dick i have always been a fan of the CF card. I have 5- 512mb cards but just got a 1gb MD because of the 1Ds. Seems to work well but just tested it out yesterday. The MD is mechanical and more likely to malfunction in my mind but a 1gb CF card is more than 500 dollars at this point. mark

Dan Zenzel · #3 12-21-2002, 10:26 AM

I have both the 1GB IBM Microdrive and the Kingston 1GB CF. There really is not any apparant speed difference that I notice. You really have to be watching the timing very closely to notice anything in the "real-world" use of the two.

I have used my 1GB Microdrives (4 of them now, thanks to the 1Ds) in D30, D60 and now the 1Ds. As said, they are mechanical, and might have trouble, but I have yet to see anything lost or ruined in two years with the drives.

The CF cost is quite a bit more if you are looking at the 1GB ones at this point.

It will be interesting to see the FAT32 3GB microdrive costs/performance.

Felipe_Castanho · #4 12-22-2002, 03:32 AM

Dick,
My experience with my two MD have been outstanting for more then 1 year, not a picture lost, and I have to admit, I am not very carefully, plus I got my equipament onto several diferent situations that push them to the limit. Also I got a software called Easy Recovery (that I highly advise) that I used onse to recover my lost HD (desktop), soo I formated my MD just to make a test and then I used the software on it. I was able to recover ALL the pictures.

From what I have been reading here in this forum and other places, Solid State are certanly more reliable, but when you lost data it is much more dificult to recover. I also heard about that when a solid state card show some problem, then it is the first of several other forcing you to change it. But on MD if you have one problem you can solve it by just formating it, aparently it will not give you more problems. If I am wrong please, somebody correct me, but this is what I have been reading around.
Also you have to thing about costs. A MD of 1Gb costs about U$280 and a CF Solid State 1Gb costs about U$600. Soo you can buy 2 MD for the price of one Solid State and you also get some change. I think this is good deal, because you can have not 1 but 2Gb and in two cards, soo if one goes dead you still have another to continue your work. And it will be more easy to recover the lost data on the dead one.

Hope I helped.