Microdrive - pros/cons?

[Goc]

I'm planning to buy a Microdrive for my Fuji S602Z... I can only get a Magicstore 2.2Gb here.
Does anyone have experience with those? How will it affect battery life? Any info you may have would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[VJ]

Re: Microdrive - pros/cons?

Originally posted by Goc
I'm planning to buy a Microdrive for my Fuji S602Z... I can only get a
Magicstore 2.2Gb here.
Does anyone have experience with those? How will it affect battery life?
Any info you may have would be appreciated.

Ok, a quick response from Italy
(32 degrees C, extremely hot, a lot of climbing to be done here in
wonderful Perugia)

MD are said to be more fragile than CF cards (esp. regarding drops). But
then again, if it is inside a camera: dropping that isn 't recommended
either.

Writing the first files is slightly slower (drive has to spin up), but
when it is spinning, writing goes as fast (if not faster) than for some CF
cards.
They are said to use more battery-power, but I cant't say if it is
noticable in autonomy.

You can check Rob Galbreight site for speed comparisons. I cant find the
link here, but just search on Google for CF card performance database (not
sure if the name Galbreight is written correctly).


Jorg

PS: nice to see people do appear to be behaving, or did Sasq had to
intervene ? (then you'll have seen who is the 'bad cop'

[HedsSpaz]

http://www.robgalbraith.com

[Goc]

Thanks guys...

[Pace]

Anyone know if the S602Z can take a CF card (or HDD) larger than 1GB?

[Goc]

I'm waiting for my paycheck to find that out...

[VJ]

CF card size should not be a problem for the camera (the controller is embedded with the CF card, unlike with smartmedia). Only issue could be the formatting: if you intend to go over 2GB, you camera should support FAT32.

Be aware though if you go the harddisk-option: the microdrive is a type-II CF card, which is a few millimeters thicker. The camera should have support for type-II cards and microdrive (some cameras apparently do support type-II but not microdrive, others specify a revision-number for the microdrive!).


Jörg

PS: Sandisk has a 4 GB card which has a switch: either you have 4 GB in one 'partition', or you can switch to 2 seperate 2 GB partitions:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0402/04...ndisk4gbcf.asp

[az]

It is also possible to format large CF cards with FAT16 and a large cluster size.

AZ

[Goc]

S602Z supports CF TypeII, and specifically states that it supports Microdrive. It was sold bundled with 340Mb Microdrive so there shouldnt be a problem...
The only question is how it will work with 2.2 Gb drive. And what will happen if the card is formatted using CF reader/writer instead the camera itself.