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To: Joe Copia who wrote (2604)	3/21/1999 9:32:00 PM
From: chris431	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18366

Preview of IBM Microdrive agnhardware.com Technology is moving at such a fast pace that it is getting harder and harder for companies to impress us with their new products. After all we are already using incredibly fast PCs, with large hard drives and lots of memory, what more can they offer? IBM already has a lot to offer with great PCs, laptops and the best hard drives on the planet. Their Deskstar and Ultrastar hard drives have won accolades in every magazine and website where they were reviewed. With sizes up to 22 Gigabytes, they are setting new standards in performance and overall size. As hard as it may be to believe, I think their upcoming Microdrive is going to get the most attention, even though it only has 340MB of storage space. After all it is not the size that matters, it is how you use it! The Microdrive is IBM's solution to the lack of storage in portable devices, offering the option for 170 or 340MB for a price of right around $1 per Megabyte. Considering that I paid $185 for a 48MB SanDisk card, (About $4 a Megabyte) the Microdrive sounds like the deal of the century. As with the SanDisk, the Microdrive is built upon the Compactflash standard that is used with many popular PDA's, digital cameras and more. Unlike the SanDisk card the Microdrive uses actual hard drive technology rather than the speedier flash memory technology of the SanDisk. The Microdrive is able to store so much data in a small space using IBM's Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) head technology. This technology was reverse engineered from alien technology that we captured in… Hmmm, sorry I am going off on a tangent again. The specifications of the Microdrive make it hard for me to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. The drive is actually the result of many years of work from the minds at IBM, making use of many of their leading-edge technologies. The drive weighs only 17 grams, with a speed of 4500RPM and a miniscule 3.3 volts of power of power consumption. Because the drive is based upon moving parts, performance is not going to be as fast as what we have currently with flash memory cards. Seek times should be around 15ms, a speed that is equal to the 350MB Maxtor that I had in my old 486 computer. Transfer rates are also slower with around a 250k/sec - 400k/sec transfer speed depending on the datas' location on the drive. Compact Flash memory on the other hand is three times as fast, making it a better choice for those people who are in a hurry. Even though the Microdrive is going to be too slow for running Windows98, it should be just fine for your PDA and digital camera storage needs. Just imagine picking up the new Creative Labs MP3 player with the ability to store 340MB of your favorite MP3s! You would be the envy of all of your friends. On the Digital camera front I am unsure of what benefits the extra storage will add, since I have yet to even come close to filling the space of my 48MB SanDisk using my Kodak DC260 camera on the maximum resolution setting. My biggest problem with the digital camera is that the batteries run dead far before I run out of storage space. PDA users will no doubt love the Microdrive, because with 340MB of storage they could bring along their entire outlook contact, calendar and notes list, without the worry of running out of space. The most exciting thing about the Microdrive is that the technology is new, which means that there will be improvement. As time goes by, IBM will perfect this technology and speeds will increase as well as capacity. The future definitely looks good! -Click here to leave your own comments or thoughts on this preview