10D & Magicstor or other MicroDrives

[stephenbutcher]

I am thinking on expanding my memory and there is some saving to be made between compact flash cards and microdrives. I was wondering if anyone has any positive (or if not then negative) experience on the use of microdrives in the 10D...?

Thanks,
StevieB

[KevinLeddy]

Stephen,

I bought a 1 gig IBM MD (now Hitachi) 2 years ago for use in my Dimage 7i and had no problems ever.

I added a 2nd 1 gig IBM MD a few months later (as I could easily fill both when I shot certain events) and no problems to date.

8 months ago I bought my 10D and added a 4 gig Hitachi MD (out of a Muvo2 mp3 player) and have yet to have even one problem (knocks on my wood) after probably 15k shots or so using all the drives.

That being said, they are not terribly fast, but I was satisfied with the capacity /speed vs $$ spent. The speed issue would be my main complaint as I would take many shots very quickly and had to remember to get my finger off of the shutter button or the buffer would not empty.

Now that I am moving up to a 20D the speed issue is mostly irrelevant

I have no experience with Magicstor but have read of much compatibility and other issues so I steer clear of those.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

[StevenWells]

how does the battery life compare. I've been very impressed with 10D (and sure 20D) battery life, but with the Canon 70-200 IS USM lens sucking battery life plus my batteries getting old, I've ben cautious of getting a 5GB microdrive. That plus 1GB flash CF cards for $45 makes me want to avoid microdrives.

[regis_helaine]

forget about magicstor...too much problem with them...get the hitachi ones....
but except for really high cap take a CF it is even more reliable

[KevinLeddy]

I can't compare battery life between CF and MD's because I've only used MD's in my 10D.

What I can tell you is that I use a battery grip and usually have my 70-200 2.8L IS lens on and can take more than 600 frames easily (no flash). The thing that kills my batteries is if I use the LCD a lot. One of the things I do is turn off review and look only when I need to.

Also I have 6 batteries that I rotate, I bought a pair of these batteries and they have been fine so far.

[Florian_von_Behr]

[ QUOTE ]
I am thinking on expanding my memory and there is some saving to be made between compact flash cards and microdrives. I was wondering if anyone has any positive (or if not then negative) experience on the use of microdrives in the 10D...?

Thanks,
StevieB

[/ QUOTE ]

You should avoid the Magicstor. I learned it the hard way. Now I use a 2GB Hitachi MD and it works really nice. One Battery at least fills the 2GB (in Raw Mode) and it is quite fast. Nothing negative to say.

Florian

[Jan_Vasek]

I've had no problems with my IBM 1gb microdrive that's now 4 years old, I got that in the D30 days (used in 10d and 20D with no problems) when the price difference between microdrives and CF was double. If you are looking at 4gb cards or drives then the difference in cost is still considerable, for the 2gb and 1gb the savings less so.

I think both types of storage are good, perhaps you need to be a little more careful around microdrives IMO, but then I wouldn't throw around any of my camera gear anyway.

I don't like the idea of very large storage as I take the view that you could lose a larger amount of shots on the card or drive in the unlikely event of a problem. I've also seen threads where the counter argument is that swapping cards has resulted in pin/slot damage on the camera.

Stick to the mainstream brands for either CF or microdrives and I think you will be ok, and don't overpurchase as prices are likely to be even less in the future. eg Last June I bought two 1gb Lexar 40x cards at a good price at the time £140 each - 80x 1gb Lexars are around £80 now.

Jan