Microdrive History(2008)

17 hours ago

IBM Microdrive, released in 1999, was initially doubted but found its niche in digital cameras due to CF-II compatibility and higher capacity compared to early CF cards.
Early Microdrives offered advantages in storage and speed over CF cards, but lost speed edge as CF cards improved, though they remained price-competitive.
Hitachi took over IBM's hard disk segment, and OEM deals (e.g., with Creative for MP3 players) affected Microdrive availability and pricing.
Competition intensified with CF cards gaining capacity and speed (e.g., UDMA modes), while Microdrive manufacturers like Seagate and WD entered, but faced challenges from low-cost, problematic alternatives like GS-Magic's Magicstor.
By 2006-2007, CF cards surpassed Microdrives in speed and capacity (e.g., SanDisk Extreme IV at 40MB/s), leading to Microdrives' decline, with later 1-inch drives shifting to USB or being replaced by SSDs.
Samsung revived the form factor with the SpinPoint A1 series, offering 40GB and faster speeds via a 1.3-inch platter and perpendicular recording, but still lagging behind high-speed CF cards.

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