4GB Hitachi MicroDrive - $199!

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Gawd
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Aug 5, 2003
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The 4GB Hitachi MicroDrive (a CompactFlash II form factor hard disk drive compatible with all CF II devices) usually retails for $499 with a PC Card Adapter. Well, Creative Labs released the Nomad Muvo2 4GB for $199. It turns out you can take apart the MP3 player, take out the 4GB Hitachi MicroDrive and use it! That is a $300 savings, and is more space than anybody will ever need! And if you want to use it as an MP3 player, you can put it back in, and reload the firmware... and it is back to normal. Check it out...

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/darktip...3597773,00.html
http://www.andymack.com/mylog/pivot/entry....andard-886#comm
http://www.andymack.com/mylog/pivot/entry....andard-881#comm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00...3603585-8891007
 
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How fast are the transfer rates?

I always wondered if its possible make a harddrive out of Flash memory chips(?) and run your Os and games with it.
 
Unfortunately this thing is actually a HD not a CF. CFs are still in the $450 range for 2gig. The newer motherboards are supporting USB boot and so I am sure they will have 1gig plus pen drives that are relatively low in price soon. We hope :) We all want that instant boot and swap file access. I think it is worth looking up to see if someone has made a bootable one already...
 
Well... they are exactly what they call them, MicroDrives. They are really small hard drives, and you can use them in any Compact Flash Slot II device.
 
Originally posted by UCFShadowWrecker
Unfortunately this thing is actually a HD not a CF. CFs are still in the $450 range for 2gig. The newer motherboards are supporting USB boot and so I am sure they will have 1gig plus pen drives that are relatively low in price soon. We hope :) We all want that instant boot and swap file access. I think it is worth looking up to see if someone has made a bootable one already...
Click to expand...

The common CF flash or USB disks are not going to give that instant boot ot swap file performance that you'd like even if they are bootable. The transfer rate is much lower that a regular HD and they actually have a limit on how many time it can be written to. If you it to store data files, you should be okay with the limit. But swap files can read and rewrite thousands of times in a short period and can render the thing useless real fast. The only advantage they have is the near instantaneous access time due to no moving parts.
Products based on more expensive flash technology already exist and they do give you that high transfer rate and fast access time. You can take your pick on SCSI, Fibre Channel or ATA interfaces. But the price is really prohibitive. I've read that currently it's in the order of $1K per 1GB. Check out bitmicro for an example.
 
Aren't Microdrives much more fragile, though?

And what about the PC Card Adapter? What is the retail on that?
 
most of the reliability, bootup times, transfer rates, etc arguments have been going on since the very first microdrives came out.
 
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