Hi-MD Player solely as a portable hard drive

[Ranma13]

I'm not really interested in the music aspect of the Hi-MD player but after hearing that it can function as a mass storage device I became extremely interested. After all, for a mere $200 and a $5 Hi-MD, you can have 1 GB of file storage, cheaper than any flash drive out there (size isn't a concern of mine). I was wondering what the data transfer (read/write) speeds are like on the Hi-MD player, does anybody have any numbers or comparisons?

[KJ_Palmer]

The data transfer speed for Hi-MD seems to be between about 500 KBytes/sec and 1.1 MBytes/sec. This thread on another forum discusses this. Obviously at the moment we only have information for the NH600, though the other Hi-MD devices ought to be similar I guess...

[Fray Adjacent]

It would be too slow to use as a harddrive device, although it has been said to have adequate bandwidth to watch smaller videos and play audio from it.

It would be better as a sort of backup device rather than a portable harddrive.

[Ranma13]

That's fine, when I said I wanted to use it as a portable hard drive, I meant for data storage only. The transfer speed might be too slow to transfer large files at a time but I usually only work with stuff ranging from 2-10MB so it should be fine.

[bhangraman]

Sustained transfer speed on the NH1 (using a 219MB test file) is about 450K/sec.

[Ranma13]

That's a little over 8 minutes for 219MB. Might be a bit too slow for big files but should be fine for some MP3 transfers here and there. I really wonder when Sony is going to realize that ATRAC3 will never become a standard and just start making MD players play MP3 files. If they did, I bet MD players could even outbeat the iPod.

[bhangraman]

Just an FYI, but an iPod Mini with the same file = 2.3MB/sec.

[Qwakrz]

iPod (either mini or standard) = HDD based technology

MiniDisc = Magneto Optical technology

MO technology used in minidisc has always been slow but is less prone to errors or corruption. It originally only had to playback a 300ish kb/s data stream from the disc & only had to record at that pace as well.

[bhangraman]

but is less prone to errors or corruption.

Not really in practical terms, I'm finding.

[Qwakrz]

HDD based equipment is not able to handle shocks as well as MO equipment, the main reson being that even slight damage to the surface of a HDD can place particles inside the drive that can go on to damage further areas of the drive when operated. If at any point the heads come into contect with the media surface it is good bye to that HDD. Even when the drive is off, a sharp shock has caused one I had to unload the heads and scratch the disc surface. (took the drive apart as out of wnty and failed to initialise)

MO drives can sustain a shock while in use & even if the head touches the disc it may leave a mark but no further damage can result from this. Also it takes heat & magnetics to change the information stored on the disc & not just a weak magnetic force (Boy have I had fun with PC's and magnets when trying to return as DOA).

I think the main limiting factor with MO on a minidisc is the time it takes for the spot of information to cool down enough so that when it passes under the magnet a 2nd time (to write the track next to it) it is cool enough to not be affected.

Anyway, this is my personal experience and also my feelings. I believe that HDD based players are ideal for gentle use (I even own one) but prefer minidisc because if I drop it (you should see my N900, all scratched and bent) it will keep working without problems (has sofar).

[bhangraman]

All very well in theory. In practice, I can tell you it's rather different. Have you tried drop-testing the Hi-MD's, MD's and the iPod Mini?

[xispe]

hummm, i would rather not dropping any of those

[bhangraman]

Fortunately, some of us can and bring you the results :grin:

[jadeclaw]

Not necessary, dropping HDD-based players always result in a fatality. If it survives the first impact, it will fail later. Why?

Read on:

http://www.seagate.com/support/tutorials/h...rview_page.html

And Seagate should know...

By the way, I once managed to drop a harddisk onto a carpeted floor.

After that, it was quite noisy and failed completely a very short time later.

[Ranma13]

In response to the person who said even if the head touches the MD it'll just scratch it: MDs use lasers, not magnetic heads like in hard drives. In order for the laser assembly to touch the MD, it would have to break off from the base and fly straight up. In other words, you'd have to almost run over the MD player for that to happen.

In response to the post about dropping HDs instantly or inevitably killing them: I know people who have iPods and have dropped them several times on hard ground and they have survived the impact. Apple and other portable HD players have enough engineering background that they can minimize the shock to the HD. Of course, a MD player is still much more durable than an iPod, but HD based players aren't as prone to shock as people believe them to be.

[skyther]

Thank you for not double posting.

There are obvious differences between desktop and portable hard drives. Ramps and fluid bearings with overall much more rugged designs used in portable hard drives will withstand more knocks than their desktop counterparts. Fluid bearings are cushioned and fare much better against shocks. Please use comparable and relevant evidence in backing your opinion. Precautions for desktop drives are not entirely relevant for laptop drives. Hard drive technology has progressed much further than MO tech.

Optical media has always been more error prone. It's not even a valid arguement. A single speck of dust on the disc will trigger error correction to start reading parity bits.

2.3MB/s is awfully slow, compared to what the normal pods do.

[Andy]

Everyone has had a scratched CD which doesn't play back properly (although, the error correction on CDs is extremely good - I attacked a CD with sandpaper once and it played back without skipping the first few iterations of my test. I believe you can drill a 5mm hole in a CD, and assuming there are no other defects, it will still play back correctly.)

On the other hand, I've never heard of a MD getting corrupted. I haven't followed much of the NetMD stuff, but I don't think it should make a difference unless SonicStage really is bad. I've heard of players failing, but never discs losing data or skipping.

Now, take portable hard drives - I have heard of these failing after being dropped. Maybe this is just a market share thing, and there aren't enough people out there dropping MDs and complaining about it when they don't work, but considering how long MD has been around, I'd put a fair bit of trust in them for data.

But, I'm comparing apples and oranges here, because I'm talking about old-school MDs, not fancy Hi-MDs or Hi-MD formatted old-school MDs. Only time will tell with how these perform - but putting them in the same bucket as CDs is misleading.

One of the cool hard drive things which is appearing in some laptops (IBM I think) is an accelerometer which detects if you drop your laptop, and in that case, it moves the heads off the hard drive, so on hitting something hard, they don't smack into the disk causing it to go bad. This is only a recent thing and I think it is a great idea (though this won't protect it against some other types of shock, like if you had it firmly attatched to a car, which then went and crashed. Up until the crash it was travelling at a constant speed (no acceleration), so the heads will be over the disk.)

I think a lot of Ipod drops won't be fatal just because most of the time, the heads are out of the way and it is playing back from memory. A hard drive is a lot more prone to get harmed when it is being used than when it isn't.

Conclusion: if old-school MD is anything to go by, then Hi-MD will be more reliable than IPod for storage. This doesn't mean that IPod is unreliable though.

[|/|3]

I've heard of corrupted minidiscs. I have several. Skipping through "silverf**k" by the Pumpkins, and one a while ago, on an X disc. Had to chuck both, they were dead.

My E900 also skipped to death. Heh.

[CrackBone]

HDD based equipment is not able to handle shocks as well as MO equipment, the main reson being that even slight damage to the surface of a HDD can place particles inside the drive that can go on to damage further areas of the drive when operated. If at any point the heads come into contect with the media surface it is good bye to that HDD. Even when the drive is off, a sharp shock has caused one I had to unload the heads and scratch the disc surface. (took the drive apart as out of wnty and failed to initialise)

MO drives can sustain a shock while in use & even if the head touches the disc it may leave a mark but no further damage can result from this. Also it takes heat & magnetics to change the information stored on the disc & not just a weak magnetic force (Boy have I had fun with PC's and magnets when trying to return as DOA).

I think the main limiting factor with MO on a minidisc is the time it takes for the spot of information to cool down enough so that when it passes under the magnet a 2nd time (to write the track next to it) it is cool enough to not be affected.

Anyway, this is my personal experience and also my feelings. I believe that HDD based players are ideal for gentle use (I even own one) but prefer minidisc because if I drop it (you should see my N900, all scratched and bent) it will keep working without problems (has sofar).

the only thing i dont like in MD`s that the optical heads are really easy to break and really really expensive to repair. A lot of md`s on ebay are sold for parts because of that.

Sony should somehow sell the parts of optical head - since the head consists from a lot of details and every each of them can be really easy broken and since the head is expensive(costs almost as much as the unit itself).