Microdrive Disadvantages
- As of 2006, Microdrive's capacity advantages were exceeded by CompactFlash cards (which are the same size and are often compatible with each other), and USB flash drives. As of 5 July 2012, 128 GB CF cards are available, offering more than 10 times the storage space of the largest Microdrive.
- Being mechanical devices they are more sensitive to physical shock and temperature changes than flash memory, though in practice they are very robust and manufacturers have added several features to the more recent models to improve reliability.
- A microdrive will generally not survive a 4 foot (1.2 metres) drop onto a hard surface whereas CF cards can survive much higher falls.
- Microdrives are not as fast as the high-end CompactFlash cards; they generally operate at around 4–6 megabytes per second while high-end CF cards can operate at 45 megabytes per second. This may cause problems for photographers who shoot sequences of large images in rapid succession.
- They are not designed to operate at high altitudes (over 10,000 feet), but can be safely used on most commercial aircraft as cabins are generally pressurized.
- Outside of the professional photography market, Microdrives have more limited popularity by general consumers because many newer compact cameras lack CF/CF II slots due to the increasing popularity of portable flash media.
- Only high capacity models are manufactured, as it is not profitable to make low-capacity Microdrives. At the end of 2005 only capacities above 2 gigabytes are manufactured while 256MB and 512MB CompactFlash cards were still in production. Lower capacities are still readily available second hand on eBay but these are usually the same price as CF cards of the same size.
- Unlike flash memory, Microdrives require power even when no data is being transferred to them to keep the disc spinning. As a result many devices such as the iPod mini leave the drive switched off for most of the time while periodically starting it up to fetch data from it to fill the device's buffer. Microdrives will switch off after idling for more than a few seconds to counter this problem however this means that more time is lost constantly spinning the drive up. This effect would be particularly problematic if an operating system is being run from the drive. However the drive can be forced to stay running if the host device is programmed to write random bits of data to it.
- Certain bus-powered CF card readers lack the power needed to run a Microdrive although they do take CF II cards, when using such a device it will usually be detected by the host but errors will occur once the user attempts to access the drive.
- Some "OEM Only" drives use the CompactFlash form factor but only provide a 5V IDE/ATA interface. These will not work in readers or devices which expect a 3.3V interface and full CompactFlash functionality ,
- Microdrives also require some time to spin up, this is very low when compared to regular hard drives but not as fast as flash memory.
- Since Microdrives are often integrated in another device, this can cause trouble if the drive breaks. It is usually the most fragile component of the device, and if the device is out of warranty it can be very difficult to replace the drive.
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