How noisey are IBM/Hitachi Microdrives?

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 10:41 am

Anyone tried using one before? I want to know how much noise the thing makes, since I've never had one before. Considering that Hitachi plans on coming out with a 4 gig one by fall of 2003, it could, potentially, be used as a main hard drive for "modern" operating systems. (Windows, Linux with X, etc.)

If it's really quiet, that could be the "stopgap" solution between going solid-state vs. normal HDs. (Price is still higher than normal HDs, but it's currently $250 for 1 gig, which is waaaay cheaper than real solid-state.)

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 11:40 am

Yes good idea, but I think the problem it's not bootable but you can always use it as a second HD.

Great for transporting files to another laptop though.

Silent? No idea but I guess because its enclosed in metal, and then nearly enclosed again once you insert the card into the laptop, I don't think it will make much noise.

dgouldin · Post by **dgouldin** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 12:15 pm

Unless I'm confused, I believe you can boot Linux from compact flash:

http://www.embeddedx86.com/support/linux/TSlinux3.php

dgouldin · Post by **dgouldin** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 12:31 pm

This site also seems to have some useful information:

http://www.magicram.com/

(Hmm ... bootable USB flash drive) http://www.magicram.com/usb-flash.htm

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 2:33 pm

ez2remember wrote:Yes good idea, but I think the problem it's not bootable but you can always use it as a second HD.

That's a common miscoception, but that is not true.

Compactflash standard requires the "cards" follow the IDE standard for accessing drives using PIO mode 3 exactly. The only reason it's not bootable "normally" is because the reader doesn't allow it. If you get a Compactflash to IDE cable conversion kit, (usually about $10-$15), you can plug a compactflash card into your computer the "normal" HD way, which makes it not hot-swappable, but it'll act like a normal HD. (Meaning, bootable, formattable, read/writable, etc. etc.)

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 3:14 am

Thanks, I knew someone would come up with the answer it is bootable by some means, that's why I said 'think'.

Thank you for your reply.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 7:19 am

The performance might be interesting. I doubt these things are particularly fast.

henke · Post by **henke** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 4:38 pm

Does anyone know how noisy a microdrive is compared to a normal laptop hd?

henke · Post by **henke** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 7:17 am

digitalix wrote:It's quieter than the IBM hard drive in my laptop if that helps you out any.

Nope, it doesn't

I just switched hd from a IBM OEM 2.5" to a Fujitsu MHS2030AT 2.5" and I can't believe the diffrence.

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 9:22 am

digitalix wrote:Is it any worse than the number of bad sectors you will eventually encounter on your magnetic hard drives? I always thought it was fairly similar between the two. Regardless, the fact that it has no moving parts has its appeal, though it comes at a price...

Yes -- as CompactFlash's memory is in cells, and are only rated at 100,000 writes under normal usage. What this means, effectively, is that, if you use it as a hard drive, once parts of the partition table becomes read-only, your drive is toast. There are better flash memory out there, but those aren't used for CompactFlash as far as I know.

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Fri May 02, 2003 7:44 pm

digitalix wrote:Has anyone actually experienced problems due to this? I've always seemed to ignore it even though they always proclaim that, never seemed to bother me quite yet.

Normally, it shouldn't matter too much... though I know of one person who uses one for logs on Linux, and it eventually went bad from the near-constant writes...

Then again, if you actually bought CompactFlash with a lifetime warranty, you can prob. just exchange it if that happens.