{"video_id":"oAsBiplfM9A","title":"This TINY Hard Drive is REAL... and it changed the world! - IBM Microdrive","channel":"Linus Tech Tips","show":"Linus Tech Tips","published_at":"2023-05-05T14:53:29Z","duration_s":810,"segments":[{"start_s":0.199,"end_s":6.68,"text":"did you know that there were digital cameras that took floppy discs for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":3.76,"end_s":11.92,"text":"storage pretty cool right well yes but also terrible since each of these can","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":9.76,"end_s":15.36,"text":"only hold a handful of low resolution images at a time and carrying around a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":13.88,"end_s":19.48,"text":"whole Rolodex of them with you while you're out taking pictures not very","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":17.359,"end_s":23.439,"text":"practical but what choice did we have flash media as we know it today wouldn't","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":21.48,"end_s":30.24,"text":"be able to cost effectively store thousands or even hundreds of files on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":26.119,"end_s":35.04,"text":"one card for at least another decade but","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":30.24,"end_s":37.48,"text":"what if we could get this into this well","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":35.04,"end_s":45.2,"text":"believe it or not that's exactly what IBM did introducing the Micro Drive a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":42.36,"end_s":50.879,"text":"tiny spinning hard drive that changed both hobbyist photography and consumer","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":47.84,"end_s":54.039,"text":"electronics forever just like this video","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":50.879,"end_s":56.76,"text":"changed our sponsor the ridge meet your","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":54.039,"end_s":60.199,"text":"new everyday carry the ridge wallet made with premium quality materials the ridge","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":58.44,"end_s":64.08,"text":"wallet will surely replace your old bulky wallet I know it has mine check","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":62.359,"end_s":68.24,"text":"out the link below and use code Linus to save 10% off your purchase and get free","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":74.84,"end_s":80.28,"text":"shipping let me set the stage it was the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":77.84,"end_s":84.079,"text":"mid90s and compact flash was becoming the deao standard for storage in the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":82.079,"end_s":88.84,"text":"emerging world of digital photography and why not compact flash offered strong","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":86.92,"end_s":92.56,"text":"performance for the time and enjoyed widespread compatibility","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":90.56,"end_s":97.68,"text":"all without SanDisk needing to sell a single card reader wait what okay so","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":95.52,"end_s":103.399,"text":"here's how they did that the interface used a 50 pin subset of the 68 pin","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":101.159,"end_s":109.68,"text":"pcmcia connector that was common on laptop computers throughout the '90s and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":105.56,"end_s":111.439,"text":"into the early 2000s pcmcia cards or PC","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":109.68,"end_s":114.92,"text":"cards as they'd eventually be renamed because no one could remember what the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":112.719,"end_s":119.92,"text":"acronym stood for anyway were typically used to add additional IO to a laptop","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":118.119,"end_s":125.079,"text":"but realistically they could be used used for pretty much anything including","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":122.159,"end_s":130.879,"text":"storage so by designing the compact flash card to be pin compatible with PCM","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":127.92,"end_s":135.319,"text":"CIA and then bundling an inexpensive adapter sled in the Box SanDisk could be","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":133.52,"end_s":139.959,"text":"sure that pretty much anyone with a laptop could read their card format","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":137.76,"end_s":144.4,"text":"remember this was all happening before USB came along in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":141.56,"end_s":149.36,"text":"1996 and even Apple power books of the era included pcmcia slots Apple's","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":147.319,"end_s":152.92,"text":"allergy to expansion evidently hadn't developed yet","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":150.44,"end_s":158.08,"text":"the only thing holding CF back was the price of the media functional flash","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":155.36,"end_s":164.0,"text":"storage in general was only 2 years old when CF was introduced and it took until","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":160.319,"end_s":167.44,"text":"1998 for SanDisk to offer a 24 megabyte","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":164.0,"end_s":169.959,"text":"CF card for context in that same year","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":167.44,"end_s":176.68,"text":"the Canon PowerShot Pro 70 shot uncompressed raw images that took up 1.9","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":173.4,"end_s":178.44,"text":"mbes each yikes I think you can see","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":176.68,"end_s":183.0,"text":"where this is going because it's obvious that IBM couldn't have picked a better","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":180.2,"end_s":187.799,"text":"time to introduce the Micro Drive the First Generation Micro Drive released in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":184.959,"end_s":195.28,"text":"1999 would store more than 80 of those same images in its 170 MB capacity or","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":191.12,"end_s":197.76,"text":"almost 180 in the 340 MB version","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":195.28,"end_s":203.04,"text":"suddenly digital photography had an actual advantage over the 24 to 36","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":201.4,"end_s":207.44,"text":"exposures you could get with a role of film especially when you factor in that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":205.2,"end_s":212.319,"text":"you could review and delete your images right on the camera to clear up space","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":209.4,"end_s":216.519,"text":"and at just $500 for the 340 megab version this convenience was Within","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":214.159,"end_s":223.319,"text":"Reach for prosumers and enthusiasts alike which sounds crazy $150 a megabyte","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":221.56,"end_s":229.12,"text":"but you got to consider that compared to the $2.50 a megabyte that you'd pay for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":226.319,"end_s":234.84,"text":"an 80 Meg compact flash card that was a heck of a deal now IBM's pricing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":231.84,"end_s":237.04,"text":"Advantage seems unintuitive to us today","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":234.84,"end_s":241.439,"text":"a whole complex mechanical device in here what but because hard drive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":239.28,"end_s":245.879,"text":"technology was already so mature compared to flash it was just a matter","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":243.76,"end_s":252.04,"text":"of figuring out how to make the part small enough to fit in the CF form","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":248.28,"end_s":255.879,"text":"factor which shockingly they did the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":252.04,"end_s":258.88,"text":"tiny platter spun at 4500 RPM with an","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":255.879,"end_s":260.799,"text":"average seek time of 15 milliseconds and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":258.88,"end_s":264.32,"text":"rather than running full time and blowing through your camera's battery","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":262.479,"end_s":268.88,"text":"they would operate more like a floppy Drive spinning up and down as needed","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":267.4,"end_s":274.6,"text":"having successfully Shrunk the drive down to 1 in then then all IBM had to do","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":271.28,"end_s":276.919,"text":"next was increase capacity the very next","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":274.6,"end_s":280.96,"text":"year we got the aptly named second generation of micro drives IBM really is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":279.56,"end_s":286.88,"text":"a lot better at engineering than branding anyway the 512 megabyte Drive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":284.52,"end_s":292.56,"text":"was available for $4 and the unbelievable 1 GB Drive which I'm","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":289.32,"end_s":296.36,"text":"holding in my hand was just 500 less","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":292.56,"end_s":298.96,"text":"than 50 cents a Meg that was even a real","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":296.36,"end_s":302.919,"text":"1,24 Meg Gigabyte by the way not the 1,000 megabyte gigs that hard drive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":301.199,"end_s":309.479,"text":"manufacturers have adopted in modern times the year 2000 also saw solidstate","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":306.039,"end_s":312.12,"text":"compact flash reach 256 megabytes quite","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":309.479,"end_s":317.56,"text":"the Milestone but the issue was the cost at almost eight times as much per Meg","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":315.08,"end_s":323.84,"text":"now the Second Generation Micro drives and most of the ones that followed spun","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":319.96,"end_s":325.68,"text":"span at 3600 RPM but they still managed","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":323.84,"end_s":331.28,"text":"to maintain the same average seek time of 15 milliseconds at least on paper we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":328.84,"end_s":335.08,"text":"got our hands on a 1 gbyte specimen but the years haven't been particularly kind","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":333.12,"end_s":338.96,"text":"to this one after some coaxing we were at least able to get through two passes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":336.72,"end_s":343.24,"text":"of each read test and Crystal dis Mark but we managed only 4.4 megabytes per","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":341.319,"end_s":347.0,"text":"second in sequential reads with some other fairly unimpressive numbers and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":345.4,"end_s":353.88,"text":"sometimes where it would just stay at zero so I think it's safe to say um y 2K","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":350.6,"end_s":356.039,"text":"got it and move on now in 2001 you could","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":353.88,"end_s":360.319,"text":"get a First Generation Micro Drive for free thanks to Canon bundling the lower","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":358.6,"end_s":364.759,"text":"capacity micro drives in with some of their high-end cameras IBM themselves","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":363.039,"end_s":369.96,"text":"further reduced costs getting them down to just over 30 cents per megabyte for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":367.039,"end_s":375.759,"text":"the second gen drives and 2001 saw the first competition with I Omega releasing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":372.639,"end_s":377.919,"text":"a 340 megabyte drive and announcing a 1","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":375.759,"end_s":382.199,"text":"Gigabyte drive now their prices were a couple years behind IBM but with more","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":380.199,"end_s":385.919,"text":"Fighters entering the ring surely Innovation would follow and the future","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":383.88,"end_s":390.16,"text":"for Micro Drive would be bright and for a while it seemed that way it was around","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":388.0,"end_s":394.56,"text":"that time that IBM's storage technology division was acquired by Hitachi and the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":392.639,"end_s":398.52,"text":"new Hitachi division took over the development of the Micro Drive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":395.8,"end_s":405.56,"text":"announcing two and four Gigabyte models to be released in 2004 and a 6 gab in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":402.0,"end_s":407.84,"text":"2005 with prices as low as 4 cents a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":405.56,"end_s":412.0,"text":"megabyte we tested one of these 2 GB models and honestly it mostly just made","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":410.52,"end_s":417.039,"text":"us feel better about our results with the 1 gig it managed only four to 5","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":414.599,"end_s":422.36,"text":"megabytes per second reads and just 2 megabytes per second rights with random","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":419.599,"end_s":427.039,"text":"reads and writes all pretty poor around3 megab per second across the board of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":424.84,"end_s":432.56,"text":"course randoms don't matter though because these aren't made to run an","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":428.68,"end_s":435.28,"text":"operating system anyway or were they","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":432.56,"end_s":439.8,"text":"we'll get to that later first up the mid 20000s saw both Seagate and Western","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":438.039,"end_s":443.96,"text":"Digital get into the Micro Drive Market with various storage capacities","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":441.84,"end_s":448.36,"text":"seagate's drives notably found their way into the iPod mini oh I guess we're","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":446.599,"end_s":454.0,"text":"getting to that now then along with hitachi's drives released in 2004 the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":451.879,"end_s":459.8,"text":"iPod mini was the little brother of the original iPod and used a micro drive to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":456.599,"end_s":462.12,"text":"cram 4 gigabyt of music into its smaller","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":459.8,"end_s":466.68,"text":"form factor which started the trend of the ever shrinking iPod while helping","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":464.52,"end_s":472.639,"text":"the iPod family to more than double it sales in 2004 and then jump through the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":469.24,"end_s":474.84,"text":"roof in 2005 with the addition of a 6 GB","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":472.639,"end_s":480.24,"text":"model and the introduction of the even smaller Nano which was the first iPod to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":477.52,"end_s":484.36,"text":"use flash memory throughout the mid 000s other manufacturers would include micro","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":482.159,"end_s":489.28,"text":"drives in various media players and even a couple of pdas like Palm's life drive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":487.199,"end_s":495.0,"text":"but none of them had the longevity or the cultural impact of the iPod in our","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":492.319,"end_s":498.759,"text":"testing the 6 GB Seagate Drive was a significant improvement over previous","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":496.72,"end_s":502.28,"text":"generations with sequential reads of up to 9 megabytes a second and rights of up","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":501.4,"end_s":507.759,"text":"to 7.74 random read performance though fell","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":505.24,"end_s":513.279,"text":"off slightly and random rights only managed about 60% of what we saw before","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":510.639,"end_s":517.12,"text":"this was definitely not a device to do a lot of random writing to but it was more","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":515.399,"end_s":522.0,"text":"than enough to handle the lightweight iPod system software at the time and the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":519.64,"end_s":527.72,"text":"limited user input courtesy of the wheel interface so things still looked like","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":523.68,"end_s":529.76,"text":"they were going pretty well but by 2007","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":527.72,"end_s":534.44,"text":"after its short time in the light Micro Drive was already riding off into the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":531.92,"end_s":538.839,"text":"sunset flash-based CF cards had caught up in capacity 8 gig cards were becoming","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":537.08,"end_s":543.64,"text":"commercially available taking away any capacity advantage and prices","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":541.68,"end_s":548.32,"text":"particularly of lower capacity flash-based competitors were dropping","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":545.88,"end_s":552.76,"text":"rapidly thanks to Moore's Law which was alive and well at the time 2 gig compact","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":551.24,"end_s":557.6,"text":"flash cards were selling for as little as 30 bucks meaning that there was no","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":555.12,"end_s":560.72,"text":"longer any reason to have a tiny platter of metal spinning at thousands of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":559.12,"end_s":565.36,"text":"revolutions per minute inside your portable device transfer speeds were","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":563.04,"end_s":570.079,"text":"also up with minimum requirements for new standards of compact flash calling","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":567.2,"end_s":575.36,"text":"for at least 10 megabytes per second easily matching the performance of our","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":571.76,"end_s":576.72,"text":"final sample an 8 GB drive from Seagate","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":575.36,"end_s":580.279,"text":"now if you're anything like me you're probably dying to take a look inside one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":578.44,"end_s":583.68,"text":"of these things so why don't we see if we can take one apart but first you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":582.079,"end_s":587.48,"text":"should check out our stealth desk pads available now on LTD store.com see how I","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":585.8,"end_s":591.44,"text":"snuck that in there that that all stealthy light yeah I know it was a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":589.399,"end_s":596.36,"text":"stretch for context we also brought along a fullsize three and a halfin hard","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":593.88,"end_s":605.24,"text":"drive theoretically everything in here should be in here just smaller","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":600.88,"end_s":607.36,"text":"wild what the devil is that bit triwing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":605.24,"end_s":610.72,"text":"oh my goodness here is a regular hard drive then don't worry these were both","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":608.959,"end_s":616.56,"text":"dead and out of warranty before we took them apart there's your magnetic storage","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":612.92,"end_s":619.44,"text":"medium there's your read and right heads","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":616.56,"end_s":624.2,"text":"at the ends of these uh actuator arms so you've got many platters CU it's a very","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":621.2,"end_s":625.72,"text":"high capacity disc okay your controller","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":624.2,"end_s":629.839,"text":"is going to be probably under there somewhere yeah","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":628.24,"end_s":638.92,"text":"yeah there you go controllers right there on that PCB okay now Micro","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":634.639,"end_s":638.92,"text":"Drive okay okay it seems to be a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":639.44,"end_s":645.16,"text":"sticker all right is that it then is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":643.519,"end_s":653.48,"text":"that the platter oh oh oh no way no way no way","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":650.04,"end_s":656.839,"text":"this whole thing is just the compact","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":653.48,"end_s":659.399,"text":"flash interface and the controller board","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":656.839,"end_s":663.959,"text":"this is the hard drive it's even smaller and cuter than I thought look at this no","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":661.959,"end_s":668.2,"text":"that's what she said this isn't the platter this is all sealed okay so this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":666.399,"end_s":675.76,"text":"is just the back of the spindle motor that's what you're seeing here that's the hub for the spindle motor okay so we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":672.48,"end_s":678.92,"text":"actually need to take the top cover off","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":675.76,"end_s":681.32,"text":"okay see this is this it makes this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":678.92,"end_s":686.079,"text":"thing makes me feel like a big giant person or something okay so you can see","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":684.24,"end_s":690.04,"text":"it's got like a really strong like a reinforced frame around","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":688.079,"end_s":693.519,"text":"it that's it's going to be really important for keeping everything stable","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":691.8,"end_s":697.48,"text":"inside while it's spinning I've never even held one of these before back when","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":695.519,"end_s":702.68,"text":"these were modern technology like there's no way I could $500","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":700.32,"end_s":703.959,"text":"what it's so","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":703.959,"end_s":714.44,"text":"cute I'm dead oh my God it really is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":709.959,"end_s":717.12,"text":"exactly just a hard drive but tiny it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":714.44,"end_s":720.839,"text":"looks like a freaking novelty thing like it doesn't even seem real it seems like","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":719.56,"end_s":724.639,"text":"the kind of thing you just put on your keychain you know the funny thing is I","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":722.959,"end_s":728.0,"text":"was expecting to show you guys like oh here's the you know the read heads and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":726.2,"end_s":731.639,"text":"the actuator and you know here's kind of the analog for that well it's pretty","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":729.56,"end_s":735.32,"text":"obvious what's what in here it's just this but tiny there are a couple of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":733.36,"end_s":739.959,"text":"differences like for one thing because there's only a single platter in here","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":737.199,"end_s":744.32,"text":"you've only got a read right head on one side and then a read right head on the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":741.959,"end_s":749.88,"text":"other side you don't need this this like stack this assembly of them and honestly","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":747.88,"end_s":753.8,"text":"that's about it the Micro Drive really did hit the market at just about the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":751.519,"end_s":757.839,"text":"perfect time didn't it its strong price to storage ratio allowed it to dominate","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":756.0,"end_s":762.6,"text":"the emerging digital photography Market while flash media was struggling through","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":760.24,"end_s":766.959,"text":"puberty and even when its days were numbered by the mid 2000s it helped to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":765.04,"end_s":771.72,"text":"shrink the MP3 player to fit into everyone's pocket making giant portable","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":769.32,"end_s":777.199,"text":"music players a thing of the past sorry creative Nomad jukebox oh and sorry this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":774.639,"end_s":780.68,"text":"message from our sponsor secret lab their chairs are engineered to keep you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":778.68,"end_s":784.8,"text":"incredible comfortable for long hours at work and play their Titan Evo 2022","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":783.0,"end_s":788.399,"text":"series chair offers four-way lumbar support comes with a magnetic memory","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":786.6,"end_s":792.12,"text":"foam head pillow and is offered in different upholsteries like hybrid","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":789.839,"end_s":796.36,"text":"leatherette softweave Fabric and Napa leather with up to a 5-year extended","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":794.0,"end_s":799.04,"text":"warranty and 49 day return policy you're covered if anything goes wrong so head","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":797.839,"end_s":802.72,"text":"to the link in the description and check out secret lab today if you guys enjoyed","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":800.959,"end_s":806.36,"text":"this video maybe you'll enjoy the video about a much larger storage project the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":805.44,"end_s":811.079,"text":"mother Vault many pedabytes it's good it's fun","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0}],"full_text":"did you know that there were digital cameras that took floppy discs for storage pretty cool right well yes but also terrible since each of these can only hold a handful of low resolution images at a time and carrying around a whole Rolodex of them with you while you're out taking pictures not very practical but what choice did we have flash media as we know it today wouldn't be able to cost effectively store thousands or even hundreds of files on one card for at least another decade but what if we could get this into this well believe it or not that's exactly what IBM did introducing the Micro Drive a tiny spinning hard drive that changed both hobbyist photography and consumer electronics forever just like this video changed our sponsor the ridge meet your new everyday carry the ridge wallet made with premium quality materials the ridge wallet will surely replace your old bulky wallet I know it has mine check out the link below and use code Linus to save 10% off your purchase and get free shipping let me set the stage it was the mid90s and compact flash was becoming the deao standard for storage in the emerging world of digital photography and why not compact flash offered strong performance for the time and enjoyed widespread compatibility all without SanDisk needing to sell a single card reader wait what okay so here's how they did that the interface used a 50 pin subset of the 68 pin pcmcia connector that was common on laptop computers throughout the '90s and into the early 2000s pcmcia cards or PC cards as they'd eventually be renamed because no one could remember what the acronym stood for anyway were typically used to add additional IO to a laptop but realistically they could be used used for pretty much anything including storage so by designing the compact flash card to be pin compatible with PCM CIA and then bundling an inexpensive adapter sled in the Box SanDisk could be sure that pretty much anyone with a laptop could read their card format remember this was all happening before USB came along in 1996 and even Apple power books of the era included pcmcia slots Apple's allergy to expansion evidently hadn't developed yet the only thing holding CF back was the price of the media functional flash storage in general was only 2 years old when CF was introduced and it took until 1998 for SanDisk to offer a 24 megabyte CF card for context in that same year the Canon PowerShot Pro 70 shot uncompressed raw images that took up 1.9 mbes each yikes I think you can see where this is going because it's obvious that IBM couldn't have picked a better time to introduce the Micro Drive the First Generation Micro Drive released in 1999 would store more than 80 of those same images in its 170 MB capacity or almost 180 in the 340 MB version suddenly digital photography had an actual advantage over the 24 to 36 exposures you could get with a role of film especially when you factor in that you could review and delete your images right on the camera to clear up space and at just $500 for the 340 megab version this convenience was Within Reach for prosumers and enthusiasts alike which sounds crazy $150 a megabyte but you got to consider that compared to the $2.50 a megabyte that you'd pay for an 80 Meg compact flash card that was a heck of a deal now IBM's pricing Advantage seems unintuitive to us today a whole complex mechanical device in here what but because hard drive technology was already so mature compared to flash it was just a matter of figuring out how to make the part small enough to fit in the CF form factor which shockingly they did the tiny platter spun at 4500 RPM with an average seek time of 15 milliseconds and rather than running full time and blowing through your camera's battery they would operate more like a floppy Drive spinning up and down as needed having successfully Shrunk the drive down to 1 in then then all IBM had to do next was increase capacity the very next year we got the aptly named second generation of micro drives IBM really is a lot better at engineering than branding anyway the 512 megabyte Drive was available for $4 and the unbelievable 1 GB Drive which I'm holding in my hand was just 500 less than 50 cents a Meg that was even a real 1,24 Meg Gigabyte by the way not the 1,000 megabyte gigs that hard drive manufacturers have adopted in modern times the year 2000 also saw solidstate compact flash reach 256 megabytes quite the Milestone but the issue was the cost at almost eight times as much per Meg now the Second Generation Micro drives and most of the ones that followed spun span at 3600 RPM but they still managed to maintain the same average seek time of 15 milliseconds at least on paper we got our hands on a 1 gbyte specimen but the years haven't been particularly kind to this one after some coaxing we were at least able to get through two passes of each read test and Crystal dis Mark but we managed only 4.4 megabytes per second in sequential reads with some other fairly unimpressive numbers and sometimes where it would just stay at zero so I think it's safe to say um y 2K got it and move on now in 2001 you could get a First Generation Micro Drive for free thanks to Canon bundling the lower capacity micro drives in with some of their high-end cameras IBM themselves further reduced costs getting them down to just over 30 cents per megabyte for the second gen drives and 2001 saw the first competition with I Omega releasing a 340 megabyte drive and announcing a 1 Gigabyte drive now their prices were a couple years behind IBM but with more Fighters entering the ring surely Innovation would follow and the future for Micro Drive would be bright and for a while it seemed that way it was around that time that IBM's storage technology division was acquired by Hitachi and the new Hitachi division took over the development of the Micro Drive announcing two and four Gigabyte models to be released in 2004 and a 6 gab in 2005 with prices as low as 4 cents a megabyte we tested one of these 2 GB models and honestly it mostly just made us feel better about our results with the 1 gig it managed only four to 5 megabytes per second reads and just 2 megabytes per second rights with random reads and writes all pretty poor around3 megab per second across the board of course randoms don't matter though because these aren't made to run an operating system anyway or were they we'll get to that later first up the mid 20000s saw both Seagate and Western Digital get into the Micro Drive Market with various storage capacities seagate's drives notably found their way into the iPod mini oh I guess we're getting to that now then along with hitachi's drives released in 2004 the iPod mini was the little brother of the original iPod and used a micro drive to cram 4 gigabyt of music into its smaller form factor which started the trend of the ever shrinking iPod while helping the iPod family to more than double it sales in 2004 and then jump through the roof in 2005 with the addition of a 6 GB model and the introduction of the even smaller Nano which was the first iPod to use flash memory throughout the mid 000s other manufacturers would include micro drives in various media players and even a couple of pdas like Palm's life drive but none of them had the longevity or the cultural impact of the iPod in our testing the 6 GB Seagate Drive was a significant improvement over previous generations with sequential reads of up to 9 megabytes a second and rights of up to 7.74 random read performance though fell off slightly and random rights only managed about 60% of what we saw before this was definitely not a device to do a lot of random writing to but it was more than enough to handle the lightweight iPod system software at the time and the limited user input courtesy of the wheel interface so things still looked like they were going pretty well but by 2007 after its short time in the light Micro Drive was already riding off into the sunset flash-based CF cards had caught up in capacity 8 gig cards were becoming commercially available taking away any capacity advantage and prices particularly of lower capacity flash-based competitors were dropping rapidly thanks to Moore's Law which was alive and well at the time 2 gig compact flash cards were selling for as little as 30 bucks meaning that there was no longer any reason to have a tiny platter of metal spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute inside your portable device transfer speeds were also up with minimum requirements for new standards of compact flash calling for at least 10 megabytes per second easily matching the performance of our final sample an 8 GB drive from Seagate now if you're anything like me you're probably dying to take a look inside one of these things so why don't we see if we can take one apart but first you should check out our stealth desk pads available now on LTD store.com see how I snuck that in there that that all stealthy light yeah I know it was a stretch for context we also brought along a fullsize three and a halfin hard drive theoretically everything in here should be in here just smaller wild what the devil is that bit triwing oh my goodness here is a regular hard drive then don't worry these were both dead and out of warranty before we took them apart there's your magnetic storage medium there's your read and right heads at the ends of these uh actuator arms so you've got many platters CU it's a very high capacity disc okay your controller is going to be probably under there somewhere yeah yeah there you go controllers right there on that PCB okay now Micro Drive okay okay it seems to be a sticker all right is that it then is that the platter oh oh oh no way no way no way this whole thing is just the compact flash interface and the controller board this is the hard drive it's even smaller and cuter than I thought look at this no that's what she said this isn't the platter this is all sealed okay so this is just the back of the spindle motor that's what you're seeing here that's the hub for the spindle motor okay so we actually need to take the top cover off okay see this is this it makes this thing makes me feel like a big giant person or something okay so you can see it's got like a really strong like a reinforced frame around it that's it's going to be really important for keeping everything stable inside while it's spinning I've never even held one of these before back when these were modern technology like there's no way I could $500 what it's so cute I'm dead oh my God it really is exactly just a hard drive but tiny it looks like a freaking novelty thing like it doesn't even seem real it seems like the kind of thing you just put on your keychain you know the funny thing is I was expecting to show you guys like oh here's the you know the read heads and the actuator and you know here's kind of the analog for that well it's pretty obvious what's what in here it's just this but tiny there are a couple of differences like for one thing because there's only a single platter in here you've only got a read right head on one side and then a read right head on the other side you don't need this this like stack this assembly of them and honestly that's about it the Micro Drive really did hit the market at just about the perfect time didn't it its strong price to storage ratio allowed it to dominate the emerging digital photography Market while flash media was struggling through puberty and even when its days were numbered by the mid 2000s it helped to shrink the MP3 player to fit into everyone's pocket making giant portable music players a thing of the past sorry creative Nomad jukebox oh and sorry this message from our sponsor secret lab their chairs are engineered to keep you incredible comfortable for long hours at work and play their Titan Evo 2022 series chair offers four-way lumbar support comes with a magnetic memory foam head pillow and is offered in different upholsteries like hybrid leatherette softweave Fabric and Napa leather with up to a 5-year extended warranty and 49 day return policy you're covered if anything goes wrong so head to the link in the description and check out secret lab today if you guys enjoyed this video maybe you'll enjoy the video about a much larger storage project the mother Vault many pedabytes it's good it's fun"}