Solid-State storage advocates -- f u!

[The Meal]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050105/sfw003_1.html

Rawk!

~Neal

[Enough]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050105/sfw003_1.html

Rawk!

~Neal

As a photographer I would much prefer to have very reliable flash memory over this device. That said it should be a hit for the mp3 industry.

[The Meal]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050105/sfw003_1.html

Rawk!

~Neal

As a photographer I would much prefer to have very reliable flash memory over this device. That said it should be a hit for the mp3 industry.

How much more would you pay for that perceived (he he) reliability? 100x more for the same amount of storage?

~Neal

[Enough]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050105/sfw003_1.html

Rawk!

~Neal

As a photographer I would much prefer to have very reliable flash memory over this device. That said it should be a hit for the mp3 industry.

How much more would you pay for that perceived (he he) reliability? 100x more for the same amount of storage?

~Neal

I suppose it depends on how much I need to buy. Right now I can get a 512 flash card for around $30. I wouldn't want to go much larger than that since if I loose a 5GB card I loose a shitload of work, less so with the 256-1gb cards. So it looks like I can get 5gb of storage that the new product offers for around $300, is the new product going to be really that much cheaper? And frankly save for the longest trips, 5gb is overkill. I really normally am fine with my current 1gb of flash for the camera. 2 gb would be heaven on my 4mp, but even quite good for an 8mp DSLR.

What I do see something like this being great for (if it's cheap) is a media player with a slot to offload your flash files onto as you fill up your cards on a longer trip.

Edit I see you are suggesting it will be 100x cheaper, if so sign me up! 5gb for $3, hell yeah they will have a huge industry altering hit on their hands with that baby.

[EvilHomer3k]

There have been 4 gig micro-drives out for quite sometime. Hitachi makes them. Before you go out and buy one, though, check your cameras capacity. Some cameras will only go to 1 or 2 gig. Mine actually only goes to 1.

Also, you can get these pretty cheap (currently) by buying the creative labs hard-drive based mp3 player. There are some sites out there with details on how to remove the drive and replace it with a smaller drive. A quick google search for creative muvo hack will net a bunch of info.

As for reliability, I've had my IMB (hitachi) Microdrive for nearly 3 years without a single problem. Works great.

[The Meal]

Microdrives fit into CF slots? Of that, I was unaware.

Priced at $300 for 5GB, clearly this isn't a bargain, but for those who take a quantity over quality approach to their camerawork (ahem) that's some pretty nice luxury.

~Neal

[Enough]

There have been 4 gig micro-drives out for quite sometime. Hitachi makes them. Before you go out and buy one, though, check your cameras capacity. Some cameras will only go to 1 or 2 gig. Mine actually only goes to 1.

Also, you can get these pretty cheap (currently) by buying the creative labs hard-drive based mp3 player. There are some sites out there with details on how to remove the drive and replace it with a smaller drive. A quick google search for creative muvo hack will net a bunch of info.

As for reliability, I've had my IMB (hitachi) Microdrive for nearly 3 years without a single problem. Works great.

Can you throw it as hard as you can at a tiled floor and feel pretty good about the chances of it continuing to work? I can do that with flash memory with almost no worries.

[EvilHomer3k]

I can assure you that I have not ever thrown my drive at a tiled floor. I can also assure you that if I did that with any cf card, it would not survive. A smartmedia or sd card might but a flash card has too much weight for it's size.

Meal, you really should look into the muvo. You can get them with the 4 gig drive for under $200. Pretty cheap storage and a free mp3 player.

[Faldarian]

There have been 4 gig micro-drives out for quite sometime. Hitachi makes them. Before you go out and buy one, though, check your cameras capacity. Some cameras will only go to 1 or 2 gig. Mine actually only goes to 1.

As for reliability, I've had my IMB (hitachi) Microdrive for nearly 3 years without a single problem. Works great.

I can say emphatically that after a year of supporting those things, I'd spend whatever extra it cost for the reliability of a CF card instead.

[Enough]

There have been 4 gig micro-drives out for quite sometime. Hitachi makes them. Before you go out and buy one, though, check your cameras capacity. Some cameras will only go to 1 or 2 gig. Mine actually only goes to 1.

As for reliability, I've had my IMB (hitachi) Microdrive for nearly 3 years without a single problem. Works great.

I can say emphatically that after a year of supporting those things, I'd spend whatever extra it cost for the reliability of a CF card instead.

It really depends on what application you have for it. Most studio shooters will do great with a microdrive and many use them, but a bird photographer might want to look elsewhere. It's really all about how much pain you put your gear through. I know I put mine through a lot (I've fallen down a near cliff holding my camera lol), so I will stick with the nearly as cheap flash memory. I could even see buying one as an mp3 player/backup for longer trips when I run out of flash memory.

I have dropped a flash card on a cement floor from a fair distance and it survived, I wouldn't be so sure about a microdrive. I'll grant that if I threw it hard enough I could probably break the plastic on a flash card, but it is infinitely more tough than a microdrive imho. But if anyone has an article to try and convince me otherwise I am open to having my mind changed.

By the way you all should see the absolute flame fests that this topic evokes on some digicam sites.

[Giles Habibula]

Do you think we'll ever see mass PC storage in solid-state instead of our current sensitive, high-speed-moving-parts hard drives? Or are we doomed to spinning platters for the foreseeable future?

I mean, we now have 1 and 2 gigs of system ram on fairly small solid units. How long could it be until we have solid state hard drives? I'd think that would be the next step, since they'd last virtually forever. On the other hand, lasting forever would not be in the best interest of the manufacturers.

And just purely amateur speculation here, but wouldn't a solid state HD also be extremely fast, like nearly as fast as system ram?