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Microdrive Technology Rebounds Thanks to iPod Mini

Posted by timothy on from the 4-gigs-for-cheap dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few years ago Richard Menta over at MP3 Newswire did a lengthy review on the IBM Microdrive and declared it would significantly alter the MP3 portable market if IBM did one thing - drop the price. That never happened and it prompted Menta last year to declare the iPod's more cost effective Toshiba drive made it moot and he put the Microdrive on his 2002 MP3 loser list. Since then the drive technology was acquired by Hitachi who convinced to Apple to use it for the iPod Mini. The Mini's recent success prompted Menta to revisit his previous write-off. Interesting view of the up and down travils of any technology and how each change can have dramatic effect on its success and failure."

71 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Pretty annoying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just bought a 4 GB Microdrive on eBay for $299, before running across this article that explains how to get a 4 GB Microdrive for $50 less than the going eBay price by buying and taking apart an iPod Mini.

    Apparently all of the 4 GB Microdrives on eBay were obtained precisely this way.... which may explain why the iPod Mini has sold out everywhere despite being a relatively-bad deal compared to the 15 GB model. Hitachi is clearly selling these drives to Apple at or near a loss, for whatever strange reason.

    1. Re:Pretty annoying by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also you can pick up a 4gb Nomad for 199, and rip out the microdrive also. Ipod mini isnt the only one using the 4GB microdrives that sell for 400+ dollars retail.

    2. Re:Pretty annoying by TheKidWho · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually they were taking the hard drives out of the Muvo2 not the ipod mini.

    3. Re:Pretty annoying by tsunamifirestorm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Could someone explain to me what you use the hard drive for? other mp3 players? digital cameras?

    4. Re:Pretty annoying by Chmarr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except that it is being reported that Apple has had the firmware in the microdrive changed so that you CAN'T use it as a standard compact-flash type drive.

      If you want to do that... stick with the MuVo2.

    5. Re:Pretty annoying by aardvarko · · Score: 5, Informative

      The seller more likely obtained it from a Creative MuVo, as the Hitachi drive in the iPod is missing some aspect of the standard IDE controller used in most CompactFlash cards and drives.

    6. Re:Pretty annoying by Chmarr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Mostly Digital Cameras. Trying to buy a 4GB CF card for your digital camera will run you close to $800, I believe.

    7. Re:Pretty annoying by SpookyFish · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I hardly think that a significant percentage of the 100k+ iPMinis were purchased for that reason.

      The Mini isn't a bad deal in any way for people who want one that is mini -- and the size DOES make a difference to plenty of people. 4G is still a hell of a lot of music, for "typical" people and/or those willing to prune what they put on the iPod to songs they'll ever actually listen to.

      I highly doubt Hitachi is selling them at a loss -- Apple is buying with at least 100k unit volume commitments. I bet they haven't even sold 100k total to retail channels! I am sure, however, they wish they'd protected against this, to keep the margins on standalone retail sales high.

    8. Re:Pretty annoying by aardvarko · · Score: 5, Informative

      Professional photographers tend to use either:

      512MB Lexar CFs, or
      1GB MicroDrives.
      (Or film. ;-)

      Larger flash cards offer drastically diminishing return, making it harder to carry around ten or twenty of them.

      MicroDrive users tend to be either desperate for storage or more careful with their cameras (as they aren't as shock-proof). (You won't see many pho/journs with a MicroDrive.)

      For the existing MicroDrive users, this 4GB "hack" is a huge boon - given that many current cameras write 10-20MB photographs (in RAW format), the ability to take more than fifty photos between card changes is a bit of a nicety. This likely won't impact current flash card users, though, as the 4GBs are just as damage-prone as the 1GBs.

    9. Re:Pretty annoying by evilWurst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Hitachi is clearly selling these drives to Apple at or near a loss, for whatever strange reason."

      It's unlikely that they'd do this for a product that was almost guaranteed to sell in large volumes. It's probably the other way around - they're making a small profit on the iPod sales and a really big profit on the drives they sell seperately.

    10. Re:Pretty annoying by gordguide · · Score: 5, Informative

      " ... Apple at or near a loss, for whatever strange reason. ..."

      Hitachi is making money off the drives they sell to Apple, in the quantities Apple is buying. It's called manufacturing.

      The "part" you bought cost more in single, packaged, retail distribution channels just like any other part does; it's called retail.

      Wanna buy a new car? Buy it in single parts, forget about the labour (we'll assume it's free) and you will have spent who-knows how many times more than a showroom example when you're done.

      Want to manufacture cars? Buy it in quantity parts, factor in the labor, and it will still be cheaper than your one-off.

      The wholesaler's markup on parts (let alone the retail markup) is about the same as a new car dealer's gross markup. Apple isn't even paying a wholesaler, but you did.

      Unlike the original iPod (where Hitachi gave Apple a 1-year exclusive to the 5GB & later larger HDs, from spring 2001 to spring 2002, so that other manufacturers couldn't buy it initially and all prices were lower 1 year later than Apple paid at first in quantity) you can actually buy a 4GB drive retail; pretty much simultaneously with the introduction of the iPod mini.

      So, instead of Apple paying down the cost to ramp up production by itself, like it did with the original iPod's drive, you just paid for some of it. By the way, thanks from all of us.

      Technical analysis of the original iPod (reports cost thousands, I saw them at work) reveal Apple is pricing the iPod twice as low as normal manufacturing practice in electronics (parts cost is just over 50% of retail, compared to the 20~25% typical in consumer electronics); perhaps you're just a victim of Apple pricing lower than the norm in the industry. (I know it sounds crazy, but that's what the data reveals).

    11. Re:Pretty annoying by Cecil · · Score: 4, Informative

      -1, Blatantly Incorrect

      s/iPod Mini/Creative Labs MuVo^2/g -- to get the correct version of the parent comment.

      iPod Minis contain a different version of the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive. In the iPod Mini, the ability for the card to do CF+ has been disabled, it operates only in IDE mode -- making it useless for digital cameras and most other things one would want a Microdrive for. The MuVo has the standard consumer model of the Microdrive with working CF+ support. It has been tested to work properly in the Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) among other cameras.

      You can see whether a drive is from the MuVo or the iPod Mini because the iPod Mini version is barcoded and serial numbered on the label, while the MuVo version is just an empty white label.

      More info here.

      --
      Random and weird software I've written.
    12. Re:Pretty annoying by GlassHeart · · Score: 4, Informative
      which may explain why the iPod Mini has sold out everywhere despite being a relatively-bad deal compared to the 15 GB model.

      Entering "microdrive 4gb" in eBay gets me 64 hits. Apple announced that it has over 100,000 pre-orders for the iPod Mini. Even if every single one of those was stripped from an iPod Mini (not likely) and Apple only produced enough to fulfill pre-orders (not likely), that would account for 0.06% of its sales.

      Please just accept that your criteria for what makes a good deal may not be shared by... hundreds of thousands of other people.

    13. Re:Pretty annoying by TwinkieStix · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's assuming that all of these microdrives are ending up on ebay NOW. What about people buying them for themselves, or people with dozens or hundreds of drives but holding them to keep supply low (to keep the price up). IANA Statistician, but I would expect it to be a slightly larger percent, but not more than 2-5%.

    14. Re:Pretty annoying by MrLizardo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I understand correctly, the ipod mini has shock proofing installed around the hard drive. I know that the bigger ipod did. Cameras however with compact flash slots made to accept flash memory do not have any shock proofing at all.

      -Mr Lizardo

      --
      ^I'm with stupid.^
    15. Re:Pretty annoying by Blondie-Wan · · Score: 3, Informative
      Apple developed their own special monitor connector so that the studio display cannot be connected to a PC without buying an additional adapter from Apple at premium price.

      Not quite. Apple developed its own special monitor connector to reduce cable clutter, reflecting its obsession with elegant design - the display gets not only video but also a USB signal and power through the same cable, instead of the three cables it used to take. Apple didn't begin offering its adapter until long after it started using this connector (ADC), and in fact a third party company, Dr. Bott, offered its own DVI->ADC adapter much earlier than Apple did (Apple even sold Dr. Bott's adapter at its store, and would even include it in custom computer configurations). It has also been suggested that ADC was a way to lock people who buy Macs into buying Apple displays to go with them, which isn't true; every Mac with a video card with an ADC output has also had a more conventional output (either VGA or DVI, and the ones with ADC and DVI came with a DVI->VGA adapter so one can use any old regular monitor).

      As far as the ROMs go, they do serve some purpose besides simply locking the Mac OS to Apple hardware. Certain OS elements are kept in the ROMs (IIRC, the original iMac moved certain things that used to load off disk at bootup to the ROMs, and cut the startup time as a result). One very old Mac model even had a whole (albeit stripped-down) version of the Mac OS in its ROM, and could be booted from it, without a disk.

  2. It takes a long time by sakusha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    to become an overnight success.

    1. Re:It takes a long time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      > to become an overnight success. ..especially when you're developed by IBM, a company with a history of failing to properly market their innovative consumer tech.

      Back in 2001, OS/2 was overheard quietly saying to Microdrive, "Sorry, kid, I've been down this road and it's not pretty. Prepare to be ignored by the marketplace."

  3. high price by mix_master_mike · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The whole IBM premium pricing for "compelling innovations" is pretty interesting. Why would they keep the price for so high for so long - was someone else purchasing the drives for another procuct?

    Hitachi is probably profiting nicely from this.. It's too bad they don't have CFlash cards that are big and cheap yet, seems that's far down the road.

    --

    mix_master_mike
    vafrous

    1. Re:high price by John+Harrison · · Score: 4, Interesting
      How far down the road do you think it is? There are 8GB CF cards out there, but you have to pay through the nose for them for now. In 18 months what do you think they will cost? 512MB CF cards (and Microdrives for that matter) used to be expensive, now people pick them up without much thought.

      4 GB CF cards will be cheap sooner than you think.

      --
      Lasers Controlled Games!
  4. This reminds me of myself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I declared Gopher dead as a result of the web in 1994, and Gopher has since has an incredible rebirth and is now in common use again.
    Text in italics may not have actually happened.

  5. Hrmm by TheKidWho · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hrmm... this got me thinking... Is it possible to replace the 4gb iPod Mini HD with one of those new 8gb CF cards?

    1. Re:Hrmm by notsolinear · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why not buy the next larger iPod for ~$1,100 less...

    2. Re:Hrmm by TheKidWho · · Score: 2, Informative

      because its not mini? plus you might also get better battery life too.

    3. Re:Hrmm by EMH_Mark3 · · Score: 2, Funny

      and the mp3s would play so much faster!! :P

      --
      Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
    4. Re:Hrmm by aardvarko · · Score: 5, Funny

      iPod Mini (silver): $249
      Lexar 8GB CompactFlash: $3000 [1]
      Case of Zima: $24
      The look on your face after it's stolen from your messenger bag: Priceless


      [1]: http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/news/articles/stor y_934.html

  6. Versus "normal" hard drive based mp3 players? by dnobel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does anybody know if these smaller microdrive based mp3 players are less prone to damage due to physical shock versus an ipod or nomad zen like device?

    1. Re:Versus "normal" hard drive based mp3 players? by CAlworth1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      >>I have never heard of anyone breaking an iPod by jogging with it.

      Nor have I, and I have owned two, and know probably 20 to 30 people with them, and have never heard of any hard drive failures. Battery problems, perhaps, but these are regular computer users with very little idea about what they should expect from a product, so they keep buying. Short of near-catastrophic failure, they aren't going to quit using them, or quit suggesting them any time soon I think.

    2. Re:Versus "normal" hard drive based mp3 players? by Bombcar · · Score: 3, Funny

      It was always reading, hardly ever writing. I used it as an MP3 store, and was playing songs with mpg123. My guess is that the Linux cache meant that it was normally idle, but still spinning. I think the gyroscope nature of the disks would help it be stable.

      I once had a panic stop that caused it to fly off the seat and onto the floor, and that hung the machine, but I think it was because the RAM popped out. A reboot fixed that. :)

      --
      Fellowship 9/11
  7. Who convinced who? by teamhasnoi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ...was acquired by Hitachi who convinced to Apple to use it for the iPod Mini.

    Is it: ..was acquired by Hitachi who convinced Apple to use it for the iPod Mini.

    or

    was acquired by Hitachi who was convinced by Apple to use it for the iPod Mini.

    Editors should be clearing this up, rather than adding 11 more submissions to the 'Games' catagory. C'mon Timothy - stop playing UT2004 for just a second.

  8. How crash resistant are microdrives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm always wondering if these drives can experience crashing or data corruption if it gets hit hard while it's running? Is it really a spinning hard drive or is it something else?

    1. Re:How crash resistant are microdrives? by aardvarko · · Score: 4, Informative

      Safer than a desktop HDD. The tiny platters don't move quite as much when jolted (edges of the platter being much closer to the axis than with desktop drives), and they tend to spin down a lot more frequently than desktop drives. Still not as "safe" as a regular ol' flash card...

    2. Re:How crash resistant are microdrives? by Tyrell+Hawthorne · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, it is just a very small hard drive. Have a look at this picture.

      As for the sturdiness, I can say that I've had no problems with mine for the few years I've had it. I've taken a few thousand pictures with it, but I haven't dropped the camera when it was reading or writing to it. However, according to what I've read they seem to be good in this aspect. It isn't solid state, so it's not as rugged as that, but you don't have to worry too much about it in normal conditions.

    3. Re:How crash resistant are microdrives? by aardvarko · · Score: 2, Informative

      Although I certainly can't claim to be a pro just yet, I've cycled 14,000 pictures through one 256MB Lexar 12x without any loss in capacity (disk images are the same size as images made the day after it was purchased) and without any obvious data corruption. You're certainly correct that it WILL wear out eventually... but when it does, I'm out $80 rather than $250.

    4. Re:How crash resistant are microdrives? by moonbeam · · Score: 2, Informative

      The other day I was showing off my new ipod mini in the parking lot. It was turned off and locked. I missed slipping it back into the sleeve of my powerbook case and the ipod crashed onto the pavement and took a nasty tumble. The blue case suffered one ding, but otherwise externally it was ok.

      In the car, I turned the ipod mini on the check to see if it was still alive. Instead of the normal ipod menu, I got the apple logo... it flashed... after a couple of minutes the normal ipod menu appears. I was concerned that I had damaged my brand new ipod mini.

      In the car, I played a couple of songs, and all was ok. When I got home I plugged it into my powerbook and did a global copy of every file to /dev/null. I found no errors. Thankfully.

      William

      --
      ---- perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(1 15),10);'
    5. Re:How crash resistant are microdrives? by aardvarko · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you really want to test the entire drive, use 'dd' to copy it sector-by-sector. Or, if MacOS X implements the Unix 'badblocks' utility, that'll do it...

    6. Re:How crash resistant are microdrives? by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bill Biggart was shooting the World Trade Center collapse using a digital camera with a Microdrive.

      He tragically did not survive, but the Microdrive did.

      This particularlly grotesque example convinced many that Microdrives weren't anywhere near as fragile as some people thought

  9. Think outside the square by powerpuffgirls · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MicroDrive won't be successful as a storage because nobody really needs to carry that much data around. When iPod comes in, it changed the use of such device, and people do have needs to carry that much of music around.

    Similar to Acer's latest monsterous laptop, which is so heavy and short of battery life. Most people said it is too heavy and short-life to be carried around, but in reality this laptop is not designed for you to carry around and use it in pubs, cafe or buses, instead it is for people to move from point A to point B, and station it on a desk again. This immediately changes its intended use and market.

    1. Re:Think outside the square by unfortunateson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the other hand, the current generation of pro-level (11+ megapixel range) digital cameras take 35MB raw-mode photos. A 4GB Microdrive becomes indispensible.

      A couple of the newest MP3 jukeboxes have 20GB and firewire for upload/download of not-neccessarily-music files and are even better.

      --
      Design for Use, not Construction!
    2. Re:Think outside the square by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think it is you that needs to think outside the square. Something like a camcorder could easily use these microdrives. Or how about a PVR that you could easily carry to someone else's house to watch movies.

      PDAs generally are designed to work within the confines of flash RAM, but a microdrive PDA might have all kinds of uses no one has thought of.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    3. Re:Think outside the square by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nobody really needs to carry that much data (640K?) around.

      Thanks for your input, Mr. Gates.

    4. Re:Think outside the square by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The cheaper disk capacity becomes, the faster people come up with ways to consume it. When CDs came out everyone was excited because something that took 20 floppy disks fit in a tiny "corner" of a CD. (Okay, so they're round, they don't have corners, just edges. But you know what I mean.) Now microsoft office comes on two CDs, that's 1.3GB if they use them up, and only use 650MB CDs. Now we have DVDs, 4.7GB for recordable/single layer which is almost six and three-quarter (700MB) CDROMs. How long before they're old hat? If you wanted to back up a disk image file or something, they might not be big enough. (I am ignoring tape because it sucks. I realize it fills some needs well, though.)

      The fact is that people wouldn't be buying portable hard drives if they didn't need the storage.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Think outside the square by THotze · · Score: 4, Informative
      You know, I get what you're saying, and to a certian extent, I agree with you. Just making a really big drive doesn't mean that there will be a good use for it. Originally, IIRC, IBM was trying to get people to shove those in PDAs - which would be more storage than most PDA users need(ed), and it'd suddenly make PDAs a lot bigger, a lot heavier, and probably somewhat slower, because its harder to manage a 1GB volume than 64MB of RAM.

      Having said that, I don't think it's like the Acer luggable. For one thing, the IBM Microdrive took something that was already successful - smaller (2.5") hard drives, and made them a LOT smaller. For another, it sounds like the infamous (if fake) "640K ought to be enough for anybody" comment. Now, admitadly, flash storage is better than anything with moving parts for a bunch of reasons. But saying that there weren't uses at that time for that much data just isn't true - digital cameras were one emerging market, sub-sublaptops were another, and I tihkn that something LIKE the iPod (basically, using it as an MP3 player, not necessarily as slick as a real iPod) is more of a natural use of the technology than something that incidentally "happened."

      It takes a long time from the invention of a technology to the time that it becomes widely used or practical - its a learning curve. That's why there are all sorts of web-based services around now that all the technical foundations were there for in 1998 - because once the tools are available, it takes some time for inventors and idea people to realize it and understand how to best use them.

      I think that if the microdrives can stay bigger (in storage space) than compact flash at a similar price point, which I thikn they will over the next 5 years, you'll start seeing more and more of them.

    6. Re:Think outside the square by powerpuffgirls · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That is exactly my point, people need to think how a product can be used, not what a product is. Obviously these "people" are the Marketing & Sales departments.

      Your mention of Camcorder, PVR and PDA are all good place to use these MicroDrives, but did the orignal MicroDrive manufacturer think of it? Do we see manufacturers using it now?

      My original post suggested that iPod changed the use of MicroDrive from storing data to storing music, but by no mean did I suggest music storage is the only use for these MicroDrives.

  10. IBM Storage Tech in Mini-ipods? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well I'm sure the RIAA will love the self-destructive nature of those drives

    1. Re:IBM Storage Tech in Mini-ipods? by dreamchaser · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I know that you're joking and it is rather funny, but I just had to point out that I have a 340 Meg microdrive that I've had for over 3 years, and it's survived not only heavy usage but it's been dropped numerous times.

      Microdrives were one aspect of hard drive technology that IBM got right ;)

  11. PDAs? by fastdecade · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With all this high storage for MP3s, why don't PDAs come with built-in 5 or 10GB?

    Yes battery life suffers, but we already have colour screens and fast processors - the days of plugging in the palm every month or so are gone, and many users are used to recharging on a daily basis.

    It would be nice to fill the PDA with work docs, technical docs, encyclopaedias, useful apps, and a complete backup image - not to mention all the music!

    1. Re:PDAs? by Fiveeight · · Score: 5, Informative

      I know someone who used a 1 gig microdrive as storage for their Toshiba PocketPC. Reduced the battery life by 50% if you used the disc much, and it got very hot. The big storage capacity was nice, but it wasn't a very effective tradeoff. Bigger CF cards are probably a better solution for most people unless the 4+ gig drives use a lot less power.

    2. Re:PDAs? by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 4, Informative

      the days of plugging in the palm every month or so are gone, and many users are used to recharging on a daily basis.

      Funny, I have a Palm Zire (nice bright color display) that I use heavily on a daily basis, with sounds and such turned on. I also make use of the built-in camera once in a while when I'm in a pinch. I only have to charge it once every month or so, sometimes once every two months if my usage is not very heavy for a while. So what's this about recharging on a daily basis again?

      --
      "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
      -- Ryan Stiles
    3. Re:PDAs? by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The zire is a toy, come back when you have something with a persistant connection to the internet, a larger screen, a keyboard, and a phone and we'll talk.

      No, the Zire is a PDA. What you described borders on being a notebook - if I wanted to carry a notebook computer around, I would have one. But you see, I don't need (or want) a persistant connection to the internet, or a larger screen, or a phone. A keyboard would be nice, but it's not critical. The Zire lets me organize my contacts and notes, view whatever documents I need to carry with me, play games, play video and music, and carry around my photo albums in my pocket.

      And like you said, the other devices "eat up power like you wouldn't believe." Why again would I want a device that has features I don't want, in a form factor I don't want to lug around, and that is a pain in the ass requiring frequent recharges?

      That's what I thought. Sorry, troll, maybe you should use one of your wonderful "2.5G devices" in the real world and see how you like it.

      --
      "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
      -- Ryan Stiles
  12. The hard drive spins, shortly by MacFury · · Score: 4, Informative
    The hard drive spins for a brief period of time to load the next song into the iPods 32MB memory. From there, all reads are done from the 32MB RAM.

    The iPod also attempts to cache the next and previous songs if enough RAM exsists. If you hit the next song button really quickly you can hear the hard drive spin up and locate the song.

  13. Sinclair Microdrive from the 80s by axolotl_farmer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone remember the Sinclair Microdrive?

    Sir Clive Sinclair, inventor of the ZX81 and Spectrum line of computers did not believe disc drives had a future. He invented the microdrive. Cheap, fast and with low power demands.

    The microdrive had small cartridges with a tape loop running inside. The Spectrum version held ~100 k or so of data. They were built into the Sinclair Ql, and was available as periphals for Spectrum (Timex in the US).

    It was very soon forgotten except by us old Spectrum afficionados!

  14. Plans? by H8X55 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder what folks will do with all the left over iPod minis and MuVo2s after they pull the drives for storage.

    any ideas?

  15. SCO starts selling iPod Mini licenses by azuroff · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the press release:

    "IBM had access to the SysV source code. IBM also developed the MicroDrive. Therefore, the MicroDrive is obviously a derivative product, and we believe that all iPod Mini owners now owe us $699."

  16. It's not the firmware. by Murmer · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's the filesystem, not the firmware. The iPods apparently use an exotic, but the problem is easily fixed. I don't know if it's easily un-fixed, but if you're going to tear open an iPod for the contents, you probably don't care about that much either way.

    So, anyway, I don't have the URL handy, but the word is that once you reformat those things they work correctly; it wuold obviously not be cost-effective for Apple to bump production costs by insisting that Hitachi munge their firmware, or to waste development time and money doing it themselves.

    --
    Mike Hoye
    1. Re:It's not the firmware. by aastanna · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Plus, you've got to assume that they're making a profit on these things. Even if someone is just buying the ipod to take it apart, it's still $$$ in apple's pocket. No real reason to discourage that.

    2. Re:It's not the firmware. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
      It's the filesystem, not the firmware. The iPods apparently use an exotic, but the problem is easily fixed. I don't know if it's easily un-fixed, but if you're going to tear open an iPod for the contents, you probably don't care about that much either way.

      So, anyway, I don't have the URL handy, but the word is that once you reformat those things they work correctly; it wuold obviously not be cost-effective for Apple to bump production costs by insisting that Hitachi munge their firmware, or to waste development time and money doing it themselves.
      I don't believe anyone has succesfully used one in a camera yet. The story I heard is that the iPod drives are locked in True-IDE mode. Compactflash cards can operate in three modes: (1) PC-Card IO (for modems, ethernet, etc), (2) PC-Card Memory, (3) True-IDE. As you can guess, in the last mode it's just an IDE drive (with a simple pin-adapter). All normal CF memory cards can operate in mode (2) and (3), and I guess most camera's interface with the card in mode (2). If the iPod drive only supports mode (3), it can be formatted to work with a PC but not in a camera.
  17. A new floppy drive by cybermint · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In this day and age, where computers are so widely used, and our data integrity is vital, we still rely on data storage methods that use moving parts. Nothing lasts forever, but magnetic media always has a nasty habit of failing much sooner, mainly because it still relies on a system vulnerable to friction. Now microdrive technology is rebounding? When is this dinosaur going to die!? Then again, maybe that's the reason it's still around. If it didn't fail, we wouldn't have to buy a new one.

    1. Re:A new floppy drive by mst76 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      In this day and age, where computers are so widely used, and our data integrity is vital, we still rely on data storage methods that use moving parts. Nothing lasts forever, but magnetic media always has a nasty habit of failing much sooner, mainly because it still relies on a system vulnerable to friction. Now microdrive technology is rebounding? When is this dinosaur going to die!? Then again, maybe that's the reason it's still around. If it didn't fail, we wouldn't have to buy a new one.
      A small rant: why hasn't Compactflash completely obliterated the floppy drive yet? The only thing required would have been replacing the FDD with a small slot for CF. The back of the slot can simply be connected to the IDE connector on the motherboard with a pin-adapter, and every CF card just behaves like a standard IDE hard disk. Every BIOS, OS and motherboard already includes full support, even ancient MS-DOS. All that is needed is a slot and a cable. I blame the fragmentation of flash memory standards for this, with MMC/SD, Smartmedia, xD, Memory Stick, and probably even more wannabe standards, all trying to get a piece of the pie.
  18. Wrong sir, wrong!! by cflorio · · Score: 4, Informative
    I have been following this very closely, and this is highly documented on dpreview. The microdrives In the Ipod Mini are NOT The same ones as are retail or in the muvo2.

    The ones out of the Ipod Mini have a very large barcode and so far there has not been a single documented case of that microdrive working in any digital camera anywhere.

    If you can provide a link to instructions on how to get the ipod mini's microdrive to work in other devices, you will be my new best friend!

  19. Reuse by cflorio · · Score: 3, Informative
    Thus far, no one has been able to get a vanilla CF card to work with the Ipod Mini.

    Scores of people, however are putting in a smaller CF card or older microdrive in the Muvo^2. This is generally a digital photographer who has a bunch of these cards anyway, and with a 4gb one, their old 256 lexar or 340 ibm microdrive can be spared.

    So, for $199 people are getting a 340mb muvo2 and a 4gb microdrive. Much less than the cost of a 4gb microdrive retail (~$500)

  20. "Thanks" to iPod? by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Perhaps the reason Microdrives fell out of favor wasn't just the price point. With the exception of raw data transfer speed, solid state Flash memory is superior in every way. Portable devices are battery constrained, subjected to extraordinarily rough treatment and great temperature extremes. Flash memory is many times better than MicroDrive in all those critical areas.

    Finally, Microdrives are fading away because flash memory capacities have been increasing as their cost decreases (in addition to the hardware advantages). All we are seeing here with the iPod Microdrives is a temporary reduction in cost-per-byte over flash memory. This artificial bubble will not last, and flash memory will (continue to) dominate in the long run.

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:"Thanks" to iPod? by msgmonkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There has never been a time a time where Flash memory has been cheaper than hard disk storage, so it's no way a "bubble" nor artificial.

      Producing a flash memory is much more complicated
      then getting a piece of metal/glass and covering it with a magnetic material.

      Of course the price of Flash will get lower, but will only happen with feature shrinks and new technology as economies of scale will only go so far.

  21. Flash vs Hard drive by magicianuk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't have the figures to hand, but I'm sure someone will correct me ...

    I believe that Flash memory can be rewritten 100k times before failure ... now that's a lot of saving new music files! However hard disks can be rewritten millions of times, which is really good for things like FAT tables, windows swap files etc.

    For things like music, photographs etc. Flash is a much better technology, just a fair bit more expensive than hard disks (at the moment). But for computer storage and in particular swap file space, flash could fail (in particular memory locations) faster than an iPod battery! Of course this may be bypassed by some sort of checksum/bad sector system or a usage balance across flash so that the swap file doesn't use the same physical memory address for long before moving onto another area of memory ... ... just a pondering, no real point!

  22. artificial bubble? by porky_pig_jr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    come on, hard drives is a moving target as well. Their density grows fairly rapidly. What do you think? CF capacity will go up and price will go down, but hard drive will remain as it is now. Rather silly thought, I would say. Expect the price difference be in the range something like 1:10 (hard drive to CF) *not* on a temporary basis, but well into the future. By the time we can get 8GB CF for $1,000, there will be 8GB microdrive for $100. Capiche?

  23. Microdrives are great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We've been putting microdrives in the compact flash slot of our mini-itx motherboards. They are $49 for 340 Mb, perfect for embedded applications, such as POS, for instance, and can hold several years of data.

  24. Lots of reasons.. by Cyno01 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    People like their floppys. I have teachers at my school who save to a floppy or even a (retch) zip disk instead of the network storage. Also, as you mentioned, the fragmentation of standards. I have a sony camera, it takes memory sticks, try finding a computer that ships with a built in (like floppys are built in) "magic gate" slot thats not a vaio. Also, eveyones computer has several usb ports and probably one or two on the front. Everyone and their mother has a usb drive nowadays, hell, i have one on my watch. You can even boot from those if you want. Lastly, the floppy killer and any solid state removble memory at the moment, the CD-R. CD writers are cheap, less than $20 after rebates. The medias even cheaper...

    All figues from office max...

    Lexar 64MB CF Card, $39.98, $/Mb = $ .62
    50 pack of floppies, $14.98, $/Mb = $ .21.
    Lexar 256mb USB "Jump Drive", $49.98 after rebate, $/Mb = $ .19.
    50 Spindle 48x CD-R, Free after rebate, $/Mb = $0.00.

    Even without rebates, the cds stay the cheapest and the usb drive, while slightly more than the floppies, retains its edge over them with portability, speed, and ease of use.
    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
  25. Considering they both use microdrives... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Informative

    You might want to return the MuVo while you can (or sell it on eBay for a profit - people really want those cheap MuVo microdrives).

    The reason why the HD in an iPod is of no concern while working out (or anything else) is that the iPod caches quite a bit - only reading the HD a little bit here or there. I have had my iPod (old 5GB model) on the floor of my car driving over twnety miles of washboard dirt road without a hiccup.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Considering they both use microdrives... by toddestan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, all of Creative's MP3 players seem to have the MuVo logo on them. A quick search reveals that the MuVo NX is a flashed based MP3 player that comes with 128MB or 256MB of memory. The original poster is fine.

  26. Go to $400, and there are by michaeldot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you can make a $300 PDA with, say, 512MB of storage for music (or whatever), it seems it'd sell like hotcakes. I know I'd gladly buy one.

    An iPAQ H2210 costs around $300-$350. It is pretty good (400 MHz XScale chip, 16,000 color display, etc) and has both SD and CF memory expansion slots.

    Add a 512 MB CF card for around $100 and there's your high capacity PDA.

    I have one and it works well, battery life is good. Of course, I'd like to put a 4 GB Microdrive in it. ;)

  27. Bad move, Apple by Laconian · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't wait until the class action lawsuits are filed.. the click-whirr of death from legions of iPod minis!

    Hitachi has inherited an evil, evil legacy.