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The Microdrive is a brand name for a miniature 1-inch Hard Disk designed to fit in a Compact Flash (CF) Type II slot. The release of similar drives by other makers has led to them often being referred to as 'microdrives'. However, 'microdrive' is not a Genericized Trademark and manufacturers other IBM up to 2003 and by Hitachi after do not officially refer to these drives as Microdrives. Some other companies of licenced the name, such as Sony , which sell re-branded ones. These drives fit into any CF II slot; however, they may take more power than Flash Memory (up to 500 mA) and so may not work in some low-power devices (e.g., NEC HPCs). Nevertheless, they have some benefits over flash memory in terms of the way data is stored and manipulated. Microdrives which can store 4 GB or more must be formatted for a file system which supports this capacity, such as FAT 32 or NTFS, which may not be supported by older Compact Flash hosts. HISTORY The Microdrive was developed and launched in 1999 by IBM with a capacity of 170 MB , which was expanded to 6 GB by 2005. They weigh about 16 G (~1/2 Oz ), with dimensions of 42.8×36.4×5 Mm (1.7×1.4×.2 In ) these were the smallest hard drives in the world at the time. From 1999 to 2003 they were known as IBM Microdrives, and from 2003 as '''Hitachi Microdrives''', when Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive division. Microdrive™ was a registered trademark by IBM and Hitachi for each period. In December 2002 Hitachi bought IBM's disk drive business, including the Microdrive technology and brand. IBM initially released a 170 MB and 340 MB model. The next year 512 MB and 1 GB models were announced and became available. By 2003, under Hitachi bigger 2 GB models came out. Over the years, these even larger sizes have become available. In 2004 Seagate launched 2.5 and 5 GB models as well, and tends to refer to them as either 1-inch hard drives, or CompactFlash hard drives due to the trademark issue. In 2005 it launched an 8 GB model as well. There are licensed branded Sony models called Sony Microdrive ; these are re-badged Hitachi made models. Recently a Chinese manufacturer called GS Magic started marketing small form factor HDDs for CF; it has, however, been sued by Hitachi for patent infringement of the IBM design (as opposed to Seagate, which used its own technology), these drives are generally cheaper and of lower quality than Hitachi and Seagate drives and have received a plethora of bad reviews. Microdrive models by timeline Date of release of large sizes. Microdrive models by manufacturer ''Many smaller sized models are no longer offered'' IBM MicroDrive (now manufactured by Hitachi)
Hitachi MicroDrive
GS Magic Seagate ST1
''These Seagate models are fitted with 2 MB of Cache Memory '' Sony Compact Vault
AVAILABILITY As of 2006 the most commonly-seen microdrives are the smaller sizes, up to 1GB. Larger (2GB to 8GB) drives, such as the 4GB and 6GB Hitachi models, the 5GB and 8GB Seagate models and the 2.2GB Magicstor drive are also available but are often embedded in Pocket Hard Drive s, 'high end' mobile phones, music players, and other entertainment devices. Such embedded devices are far more popular than the loosely-sold Microdrives intended as a CompactFlash card alternative. In USA most electronics shops do not sell separate Microdrives as they may find it economically unviable to stock them due to the fast-moving nature of the market, however they are readily available on several websites. But in most developed Asian cities such as China Hongkong and Japan Tokyo , a 8GB version of the Seagate ST1 are selling at the price (as of Spring 2006) as low as USD220 in retail shops. APPLICATIONS 28.4 mm (1.2 in) £2 Coin .]]
Sometimes when a device with an integrated Microdrive stops working the device is taken apart and stripped of its Microdrive, which is then sold on. Unfortunately Microdrives taken from such devices may not work in digital cameras. The device must be accessed using ATA mode and therefore such drives do not fetch anywhere near as much as CF-enabled Microdrives as they cannot be used in devices that do not support ATA mode. MP3 players and PDAs with integrated microdrives
ADVANTAGES OF MICRODRIVES
The largest CompactFlash cards are usually extremely expensive (over £500) - this is not the case with Microdrives. For example, in June 2005 , a 2 GB Hitachi Microdrive card retails for about $130-150 USD, while that same size in CompactFlash or Secure Digital is about $180-200 USD. In larger sizes it becomes more pronounced with a 6 GB Hitachi Microdrive card retailing for around $240-260 USD, while even a CF 4 GB model retails for between $300-400 USD (depending on brand and if it's a high-speed model) (SD stops at 2 GB at this time).
CompactFlash cards are capable of around 100,000 write cycles, this may not be much of an issue in a camera or mp3 player but may cause problems when data is frequently modified, such as when an operating system is running off the device. DISADVANTAGES OF MICRODRIVES
A microdrive will generally not survive a 4 foot drop onto a hard surface where CF cards can be thrown off high-rise buildings and still function. Using a soft packaging (e.g. Polystyrene foam) can allow survival from a longer drop. Newer Microdrives have a mechanism to hold the heads off the platter while the device is not in use. Early IBM models do not have this - when one gently shakes such a drive one can hear the heads click from side to side.
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