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4GB HD in Under an Inch
werwerf writes "In need of hard disk space but not much physical space? Toshiba is developing a sub inch HD capable of holding from 2 to 4Gb.
Seems that future digicams won't need a compact flash anymore!" They expect to be in mass production by the fall. Also, News.com is reporting that Hitachi's 1-inch 4GB drive is in Apple's new iPod mini.
Reliability is good in my experience, though power drain is horrible. spinning a platter (moving a physicality through space) uses a lot more power than flashing memory cells.
As an IBM Microdrive owner, they are brilliant. I have the 1 gig model for a Compaq Ipaq that i have, and its worked very, very well for the best part of a year.
The only annoyance is their slighly prohibitive cost, but as with all new technology of this kind it is to be expected.
Eh? [looks over at his digicam with 330MB IBM compactflash microdrive]
Digicams and PDAs have been using microdrives for years. They're up to 4GB these days I think; 1GB is more common, the older 180 is pretty much NLA and the 330 is almost too.
Furthermore- you've obviously not understood the point of removable media. Most digicams, even if they support USB 2.0 or Firewire, can't move data very fast; one camera(the Kodak 14n) barely manages 1.5MB/sec despite costing five thousand dollars and generating 14 megapixel files(yes, 14). I can nearly max out my CF card using either a PCMCIA, USB2, or Firewire CF reader, but on-camera transfer usually blows, because the processors are very slow, using embedded solutions for JPEG/RAW image compression; the CPU is more and more just a 'supervisor'. Slow clock speeds = slow transfer speeds. More importantly, i can pop out the CF card, and pop in a new one when I fill it up. If I'm a sports or event photographer, I hand that card to a guy who sprints over to the truck and editors start downloading the images while I shoot onto another card.
And yes, the kinds of people who would need 4GB in a digicam are precisely the kind of people who need to be able to pop ANOTHER 4gb in. Top of the line Canon EOS 1Ds will generate 11+ megapixel files. They get big, fast. Leaf and Phase One now make 11-20MP digital backs for medium format, as does Kodak and now Fuji. The digital backs generate enormous files, to the point that some are tethered-operation only, or come with a unit that attaches to the bottom of the camera and houses a laptop hard drive.
Your average consumer, and even many prosumers, have absolutely no use for a 4GB hard drive in their camera, and the power requirements mean camera makers would never go for it. A solid-state card is so much more power efficient than any hard drive, it's not funny.
Please help metamoderate.
DV (Digital Video), the standard consumer and prosumer digital video storage, uses up 13 gigs per hour.
:)
Reference, Google for further proof.
At first I did a double take and figured it would be some awkward, jury-rigged proof-of-concept with ugly wires all over the place, but the obvious googling came up with this: http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm with great pictures. It's beautifully executed on OS X and very pretty to look at. Amazing!