How to get a 4 gig microdrive for half the price

[boof]

http://www.andymack.com/mylog/pivot/entry.php?uid=standard-868

seems that the creative mp3 player the MoVo2 uses the 4 gig microdrives that are easily removed from the mp3 player. SO what? well the price of the mp3 player is at least in japan half that of buying a HItachi (IBM) 4 gig drive.

Ill be going to the store to get my 4 gig drive here soon....

[ronners]

I know that those things are pretty reliable, but I'd actually strongly recommend against buying one for photography. Better to buy a number of smaller cards - at least that way if one fails you won't lose all your shots.

Take a look at <A HREF="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/4gb-hitachi.shtml">this article</A> for more information. In the end, there is a possibility that any drive can fail, and you need to decide whether you can accept the risk of literally putting all of your eggs in one 4GB basket.

[boof]

ah yes.... but then if you have say 2 2 gig cards you now have twice the amount of hardware and increased chances of failure due to just numbers. Its kinda a 6 of 1 half dozen of the other. There is also the issue of having to change out the cards that can be difficult at sports, concerts, and things like that and there is also space. I know they are small but 8 512 cards might start to get a bit unorganized Dunno. I use 3 1 gig microdrives right now and have no problem filling them up in one go. 4 gig at half the price I am more than happy to add one to my collection. 7 gigs 4 cards. Im actually going to pick up two of them I think.

[BobTrips]

"ah yes.... but then if you have say 2 2 gig cards you now have twice the amount of hardware and increased chances of failure due to just numbers. Its kinda a 6 of 1 half dozen of the other."

Actually not. Probability of failure of two devices is the product of the probability of each separate device failing. If the probability of one drive/card failing is 1/10,000 then the probability of two specific device failures is 1/100,000,000.

And that's important for those of us who travel.

[boof]

true I was refering to at least one device failing not both. but you would still have half your pictures. In general I usually shoot a day and then transfer them off to a storage device at the end of the day. Funny thing is the only time I had any failures with drives wasnt the microdrives but the stoarage device I used. so the irony is that loading to a device to storage and protection screwed me. There is also the issue of file sizes. I always without exception shoot in raw mode and now raw + jpeg. 1 gig drives dont go that far actually, I get about 110 pics out of a 1 gig card. when traveling I shoot about 300 to 500 a day so actually 3 4 gig cards would be about right for me maybe :) the point is valid about spreading out your cards a bit so that if you loose one you dont loose it all. I tend to go the other way. I think it is easy for me to say that since I have never once had a microdrive fail on me. Just watch the day one does Im sure Ill be singing a very different tune :) but in any event that 4 gig card at about 260 bucks is still a great deal for what they are selling them for alone. again I havent seen prices in the US yet but at least in Japan I know and that is where I plan to buy a couple from. also there are some situations where having those fragile microdrives are less than great. concerts are the first thing that come to mind. I shoot alot of punk bands. I have been kicked, hit, punched, slamed against the stage. These things are not conducive to good care of a microdrive. changing cards means that the tiny thing is exposed for a while or I go backstage and loose time. \

in a perfect world a little wireless device that had fast speed to automagicaly send all the shots to an ftp server at home would mean data secruity (assuming your drives on the ftp server are mirrored) and unlimited shots ok im starting to just dream here now.

[AdrianW]

From what I've been hearing on DPReview you don't want those 2.2Gb cards - they aren't as reliable as the HGST Microdrives. That said personally I think you're crazy if you trust any HGST product with your data anyway...

[boof]

"That said personally I think you're crazy if you trust any HGST product with your data anyway..."


why is that? have you had them go bad on you before? DO you have any specfifc links on the 2 gig drives that point out issues with them I owuld be interested to read about that if there are issues with the 2 gig drives.

[boof]

I have received my MoVo2 from japan and did the requiered surgery on it and when I put it in my canon 1-ds it formatted as 1.9 (2) gigs. I was a bit pissed to say the least. The issue was resolved by inserting the card into the computer and using the disk manager. In did it showed as about half the card formateed adn the other half as unallocated. I blew away the formatted particition and created a new partition utilizing the full 4 gigs. formated as primary, had a smoke, put it in the camera took some shots, formated on the camera and it kept its full 4 gigs (3.8 usable) reguardless of the all your eggs in one basket school of thought or your less hardhare less chances of hardware failure thoguht it is a good amount of bang for the buck. Im already thinking of getting one more...


On a side note. you might think that I now have a useless MP3 player but wait there is more! It seems that you do not have to ghost the drive before using it in the camera if you wnat to put an old 1 gig microdive back in the mp3 player. Ususally you would get media error it seems but if you insert your old card and even come other CF cards it seems and then update (or reflash if it isnt actually updateing) the firmware on the player and you will once again be back in business with a 4 gig card in your camera and a 1 gig (or 512 or whatever works for you) in your mp3 player.
http://www.andymack.com/mylog/pivot/entry.php?uid=standard-881#comm

Not that I care in the least but I did read somewhere that creative is indeed aware of this alterior use of their mp3 player and about the only thing they had to say was that well it voids the warenty. realisticaly its opening up their mp3 player to a new market. Hitachi on the other hand might be frowning a bit.