Why a flash versus a microdrive?

**gospeed.racer** · 12-19-2004, 09:57 PM

I found this on eBay. Now, this is a 1gb microdrive, with usb adaptor (my board will boot from usb..) for $44 (shipping is ****ed up however) why would I pay 2x this much for a flash drive? Am I missing something? I know there are huge debates over solid state media and write cycles, and there seems to be inconsistant opinions on their speed. Is there much to worry about on a Microdrive? Is Usb 2.0 be fast enough to boot from? I would assume the drive would be slower than the Usb? It shows a rotational speed of 36k...slower than a ide, but since the disc is so slow maybe it wouldnt be so bad. Seek time isnt all that bad.

Anyway, any thoughts on this?

**NOS TANG** · 12-19-2004, 10:07 PM

Speed, I have both that 1G and a 4G Hitachi MD and think they are rock solid. As far as the USB portion of that goes,, recall seeing a post here a while back saying booting from USB is very slow.

Sure someone has tested it??

**gospeed.racer** · 12-19-2004, 10:09 PM

Yea, i figured the drives were cool enough...found some that were faster (4200 rpm

) but wasnt sure if booting can occur the speed of usb 2.0, or if it was plain usb until it booted. That would be the deciding factor for me. Fast boot time is as important as anything for me.

**Rundell** · 12-19-2004, 10:11 PM

I have the exact same thing, I'm in the process of trying to get it working. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have it functional.

Its called Micro Advantage 1GB Quick Drive and it has the 1 GB Microdrive inside it. I opened it up and everything looks exactly the same as the one in the auction. Looks like they just took them out of the shell and started selling them OEM style.

Oh and you can get the same thing at OfficeMax for $49.98 http://www.officemax.com/max/solutio...kOID=537336016

You may be able to get free shipping too as well, All I had to do was order over $50 worth to get it so I added a dollar item to get it free.

**Hell-Stopper** · 12-20-2004, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by NOS TANG

As far as the USB portion of that goes,, recall seeing a post here a while back saying booting from USB is very slow.

Sure someone has tested it??

was it with xp??? just wondering...

**jbors** · 12-20-2004, 01:27 PM

40x flash has the same speed for reading as Microdrive, so no difference in speed.
Even during boot( I assume USB2.0 )
The only reason I would think why you might pay some extra $$$ is better shock protection. Microdrive has almost the same shock resistance as best 2.5'', solid states have at least 5 times better( 5grms ).

**redmage** · 12-21-2004, 03:37 PM

States max transfer rate is 60Mb/s while USB2 is 480MB/s, so there is plenty of wasted bandwidth but only 4.2MB/s read/write, seems conflicting and not to confuse MB ( 1,000,000 Bytes ) with Mb ( 1,000,000 bits ) . Also, states Load/Unload cycles is 300K, what are CF write cycle limits? Is 300K poor or well?