How2Day: Hitachi 4GB Microdrive Specs

The Hitachi 4GB Microdrive is designed for use in digital cameras, camcorders and MP3 players. While some of the earlier models of the Hitachi microdrives experienced some problems with pressure on the mini-hard drive inside of them, later versions appear to have remedied the problem.

Hitachi was traditionally one of the first to use microdrives. The original Hitachi microdrive had a storage capacity of only 340 MB, while later models increased to 1 GB and 2 GB. Hitachi then followed with a 4 GB microdrive, adapting it in later models to make it more stable when being inserted and removed from the electronic devices that used the microdrive card.

When the first Hitachi 4GB microdrives were released, the cost was about $500, making the relative cost per GB to be around $125. In 2010, the Hitachi 4GB microdrives could be found retailing for $200, which brought the price down to about $50 per GB.

The Hitachi 4GB microdrive is actually a miniature hard drive set into a removable card. Unlike solid state flash drive, the Hitachi microdrive is susceptible to damage from using too much pressure when removing and inserting the card into a device, although Hitachi claims (and reviewers concur) that they have made advances in their later microdrive cards. In addition, because the microdrive is a small hard drive, it uses more electrical power than a flash drive. This means that devices that are storing images on a Hitachi 4 GB microdrive need their power level monitored more closely than those that use flash drives for storage and retrieval.

The Hitachi 4GB microdrive is enclosed in a combination stainless steel and aluminum outer casing. This allows it to have a more secure seating while in a device. While not as able to handle excessive jarring as a solid-state flash drive, in performance tests, the Hitachi 4GB handled well. The head assembly was moved from the front of the chip in the older models, where they would brace up against the electronic device, and be less likely to be subjected to squeezing when the microdrive is inserted or removed.

In order to accommodate the 4GB of memory on such a small surface area, the HItachi 4GB microdrive uses the FAT32 file system. While this works out for some of the later model electronic devices, older models (prior to 2007) worked on the FAT16 file system, making the Hitachi 4GB microdrive unusable for those models.

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