Microdrive advice please. (1 Viewer)

harry eales · Oct 20, 2004

I have the opportunity to buy a MAGICSTOR 2gb microdrive. Does anyone have experience of this 'Brand' and if so, is it a reliable item. The price new, is less than £80. As IBM 1gb microdrives retail in excess of £60. I wondered if there was anything 'dodgy about the 'Magicstor' make.
Thanks for any advice,

Harry Eales.

squaredoch · Oct 20, 2004

be careful

harry eales said:
I have the opportunity to buy a MAGICSTOR 2gb microdrive. Does anyone have experience of this 'Brand' and if so, is it a reliable item. The price new, is less than £80. As IBM 1gb microdrives retail in excess of £60. I wondered if there was anything 'dodgy about the 'Magicstor' make.
Thanks for any advice,

Harry Eales.

Be carful with microdrives. I had an IBM 1Gb fail and I am told that they are susceptible to changes in altitude pressure, Whether this is true I dont know, in any case they are mechanical drives and not as robust as Compact Flash.
I think its better to go down the road of Compact Flash and the 1 GB CF card can be found for about £85. You need to be sure that the drive will work in the camera too. I ordered a lesser known card for my Nikon and found it didn't work so I bought the accredited card.. ie Lexar as recognised by Nikon. Re the 2gb compatiblity might be the biggest issue.
this might give you more info though.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

Hope this helps

Mike

harry eales · Oct 20, 2004

squaredoch said:
Be carful with microdrives. I had an IBM 1Gb fail and I am told that they are susceptible to changes in altitude pressure, Whether this is true I dont know, in any case they are mechanical drives and not as robust as Compact Flash.
I think its better to go down the road of Compact Flash and the 1 GB CF card can be found for about £85. You need to be sure that the drive will work in the camera too. I ordered a lesser known card for my Nikon and found it didn't work so I bought the accredited card.. ie Lexar as recognised by Nikon. Re the 2gb compatiblity might be the biggest issue.
this might give you more info though.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

Hope this helps

Mike

Many thanks for the advice Mike,
The seller does give a list of compatible cameras including my Fuji 602Zoom.
He does offer a 210 day warranty. I'm at a loss to understand how altitude could effect a microdrive though. Thanks for the URL. I'm off there now.

Harry.

stevo · Oct 20, 2004

Hi Harry

to answer Your question regarding altitude affecting microdrives is that microdrives as I understand work in a similiar fashion to hard drives on a pc in that air is fed in causing a disk to spin.So at high altitudes failure on a microdrives can occur,secondly compact flash cards have no moving parts thus are less prone to failure/damage,feel free to correct me anyone.

Regards Steve.

harry eales · Oct 20, 2004

stevo said:
Hi Harry

to answer Your question regarding altitude affecting microdrives is that microdrives as I understand work in a similiar fashion to hard drives on a pc in that air is fed in causing a disk to spin.So at high altitudes failure on a microdrives can occur,secondly compact flash cards have no moving parts thus are less prone to failure/damage,feel free to correct me anyone.

Regards Steve.

Thanks Steve,
I doubt very much if I will be photographing anything over the height of 'The Cheviot' in Northumberland so I may not have to worry too much about the altitude problem.

Strange, you learn something new every day, I didn't know that hard drives were spun by air, I always thought it was an electric motor in there somewhere. lol.

Harry

windjammer69 · Oct 20, 2004

Hi Harry as a pro-sport (golf) shooter in my other life.

I used to use IBM 1GB Micro's but got rid as not only do they suffer at altitude as everyone has said...but in cold/freezing conditions they freeze up, just ask me about a Corporate Clients golf day at Woburn 9th Dec last year....they are still in the microdrive.

I now use Lexar 2Gb Cards and at £159.00 and coming down all the time well worth it

If you want an IBM Micro going cheap I have 3 let me know.

Regards

Sam

harry eales · Oct 20, 2004

windjammer69 said:
Hi Harry as a pro-sport (golf) shooter in my other life.

I used to use IBM 1GB Micro's but got rid as not only do they suffer at altitude as everyone has said...but in cold/freezing conditions they freeze up, just ask me about a Corporate Clients golf day at Woburn 9th Dec last year....they are still in the microdrive.

I now use Lexar 2Gb Cards and at £159.00 and coming down all the time well worth it

If you want an IBM Micro going cheap I have 3 let me know.

Regards

Sam

Hello Sam,
As I plan to photograph insects mainly in the warmer months I don't think cold is going to be a problem. If I need to use the camera it in winter I can stick to the memory card that came with it.

I would certainly be interested in one or more of your IBM micro's. Could you PM me with the specification and price. Please remember I am on a pension. lol.

Harry

ArchAngel · Oct 20, 2004

Hi Harry
I've just bought a MAGICSTOR 2.2gb microdrive so far so good. i've not been at alt but have used it in cold climets with no probs so far. i use it with a 10D and can take/store 841 pics in jpeg fine mode.
hope that helps
regards
Julian

PhilH · Oct 20, 2004

harry eales said:
I didn't know that hard drives were spun by air

I too was unaware of this, maybe microdrives work quite substantially differently from standard HDDs, you know, those ones with electric spindle motors... time for some brief research.

Apparantly it's something to do with the fine balance of air pressure that the drive's heads rely on to float above the platter, this air cushion is disrupted at around 10,000 feet, when air density becomes too low.

harry eales · Oct 20, 2004

ArchAngel said:
Hi Harry
I've just bought a MAGICSTOR 2.2gb microdrive so far so good. i've not been at alt but have used it in cold climets with no probs so far. i use it with a 10D and can take/store 841 pics in jpeg fine mode.
hope that helps
regards
Julian

Hello Julian,

It does indeed, personally speaking, in cold weather I like to be near the fire, maybe I'm geting soft in my old age, or perhaps more sensible

Many thanks,
Harry.

harry eales · Oct 20, 2004

PhilH said:
I too was unaware of this, maybe microdrives work quite substantially differently from standard HDDs, you know, those ones with electric spindle motors... time for some brief research.

Apparantly it's something to do with the fine balance of air pressure that the drive's heads rely on to float above the platter, this air cushion is disrupted at around 10,000 feet, when air density becomes too low.

Hello PhilH,
A very interesting bit of information, having given up mountaineering some 30 years ago, and not wanting to tempt fate by jumping out of a perfectly servicable aircraft. I think I'll just chat up the 'trolly dollies' and keep my camera for when I have my feet firmly on the ground.

Thanks for the research,

Harry

PhilH · Oct 21, 2004

well, camera use in a pressurised cabin shouldn't be an issue, AFAIK.

davethelimey · Nov 30, 2004

Hard drives have nothing to do with air spinning the platters. They have electrically driven motors and are vacuum sealed in order to prevent changes in air pressure becoming a problem. You would have to have a dramatic change in pressure to break one - probably more than 15,000 feet unpressurised. If you're up that high unpressurised, you probably have bigger problems.

stiff · Dec 1, 2004

Hi I have used microdrives on digital cameras for a couple of years with my Coolpix. The IBM ones all worked fine. I then bought Canon 300D and needed to store more images. I purchased a Magicstor 2gb from Ebay, did not work, sent it back recevied a replacement did not work, third Magicstor worked!!!!! While the discs were going back and forward I purchased a Lexar 1gb worked first time no problem. I know which I would recommend.

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