The smallest USB hard drive ever made - MicroGem QuickiDrive

[@und4287]

This takes "I can't plug anything into the port next to my thumb drive" to a whole new level, though they were at least nice enough to include an extension cable.

[@eDoc2020]

I believe that it is (probably was) part of the USB spec that they needed to have suitably small plugs. So a device like this needs to include the adapter cable or else they couldn't market it as an actual USB device.

[@osrr6422]

My first flash drive, a whopping 128mb, couldn't plug into my HP towers front USB ports because of the physical size.

[@actuallyusingmyrealnameher5061]

I still have that issue, I have a work supplied Thinkpad and in order to get the mini rj45 to fit alongside a usb 3.0 connector for a third monitor I had to employ ye olde Stanley knife and carefully pare it down 🙂

[@_..---]

there is something so precious about microdrives, they are just so adorable

[@Tat2Dragons]

Yeah, they’re totes adorbs. lol 😄

[@repatch43]

My second digital camera, a Casio QV2300 (that's right, CASIO!) came with a 340MB microdrive for storage. Was HUGE compared to the 2MB solid state card my first digital camera had (which was only 640x480, but didn't save in JPGs, so you only got 8 shots!). How far we've come.

[@eDoc2020]

If I get one it will go in my equally adorable HP 100LX palmtop which I've featured on my channel. My 10 megabyte SunDisk (note the u) PCMCIA card is a bit limiting.

[@HK_808]

The engineering of tiny mechanical devices will always impress me

[@jasonpowell396]

@@Tat2Dragons ]pppppppp]pppppppppppppppp

[@Nabeelco]

These used to be in the iPod mini, and the iPod mini was actually cheaper than the microdrive on its own, so people would buy the iPod minis and tear them apart for the drive.

[@no1DdC]

I've done the same with more recent external hard drives. These are often cheaper than buying the exact drives they contain without the enclosure.

[@GP1138]

@@no1DdC You almost can't do that anymore - lots of them have proprietary interfaces or are married to the USB interface board. I bought a Samsung T3 USB SSD a few years back and was delighted to find out that I could harvest the quick MSata SSD (or maybe it was M.2, can't remember) but I bought a recent model and it's soldered to the USB board. And of course I ruined the casing so I couldn't return it.

[@bitelaserkhalif]

@@no1DdC Good luck doing that to wd my passport... It's pain the ass to rewire to sata, plus all data are encrypted.

[@prettypointlessvideo]

@@GP1138 this sort of tech "progress" really gets on my nerves now

[@JorgetePanete]

its*

[@TheTrueVoiceOfReason]

From the packaging, I was expecting to find "AS SEEN ON TV" somewhere on the front. Lol

[@BilisNegra]

Absolutely right, it screams that kind of style.

[@Whipster-Old]

"Now a real product!"

[@TheRailroad99]

These were a mechanical masterpiece. In general, while slower than SSDs, HDDs are fascinating. It is insane how cheap they are, considering the extreme accuracy and precision that is needed to manufacture them. 10 years ago I thought that they should be replaced with SSDs in a few years. But they still keep innovating, pushing the technology forward. However I think 2.5" HDDs will not be produced much longer.

[@squirlmy]

The magic of mass production! It can take a lot of work to tool the factory, but once it's done, and distribution channels are established... I've been following the manufacture of new IBM Lexmark Model M and Model F keyboards. What seemed relatively trivial for IBM to put out, once PCs were a commercial success, and even though they came with IBM's smallest and weakest computer, is now a major endeavor to recreate. Over my lifetime, I've often heard sadness at losing old craftsmen with traditional techniques. Now it seems we'll mourn the old machinery of times past as well!

[@coopercummings8370]

They won't be an obsolete technology for quite a while, but they will likely not be used in general consumer workloads. The price/gigabyte is too good for them to go away in many applications like consumer NAS systems, archival storage for video production, or mass storage in datacenters, although I expect most homes won't contain any devices in regular use with hard drives fairly soon

[@mel816]

I think HDD's will still be around but will be relegated to specialist/niche uses. HDD's are great for data that's constantly being (re) written like digital video recorders as SSD's do wear out with constant (re)writing.

[@bangerbangerbro]

Optical discs and magnetic tape are very cool too. Yeah this is why a couple of years ago I was obsessed with the concept of modern high capacity floppies or zip drives until someone explained to me that that means locking people to fixed capacities until they upgrade their drive. That is not a problem for standalone drives though of course. Also don't forget that you can write to a magnetic drive as many times as you want.

[@bangerbangerbro]

@@mel816 Anything that's stationary pretty much is better off with an HDD. I still don't understand how that Radeon Pro SSG thing is meant to work using an SSD as slow RAM though. SSDs are good for phones but desktop PCs and home game consoles should have HDD. And DVRs like you say.

[@user-vn7ce5ig1z]

It's 2.2GB so that it can be 2.0GiB. That's rare; storage manufacturers usually just use decimal units knowing full-well that people expect binary units and just put some fine print on the bottom of the package talking about formatting overhead which has almost no bearing at all on the discrepancy. 😒

[@ketominer1016]

back in those times storage was still measured and sold in powers of 2

[@jonnyOysters]

I always hate that!

[@duelingfattiesgaming2130]

@Future Pants that might be something else. I have a 2tb drive and it holds 1.9 tb

[@greenvm]

Actually the HDD manufacturer isn't lying to you, windows is. Windows says it shows sizes in GB, but it's actually GiB

[@MightyJabbasCollection]

I bought a 340MB IBM Microdrive to use with my PDA back in 2001 or so. Still works.

[@josephcontreras8930]

I always wanted a pda in the day you could use a sd card and put mp3 files on it go online and use their store to get games for it and go online too it was cheaper to do so than pre smartphones just cell phones with tiny colored screens and way faster than dial up internet.

[@jacob1121]

You really have some the most bizarre technology showcases on the internet!

[@biankaataegina0101]

Besides Clint of course.

[@snap_oversteer]

These tiny HDDs have always fascinated me, also I was hoping you'd try the HDD in other adapter/device to see if it was bottlenecked by the old USB adapter.

[@vwestlife]

I tested it with a USB 3.0 CF card reader and the results were identical.

[@MrRobbyvent]

@@vwestlife hello, have You tried it with the ide controller too?

[@Vokabre]

This design reminds me more of an insect repellent rather than a storage device

[@JanusCycle]

Wow, a Magicstor hard drive. They were sued by Hitachi for making this drive.

[@JanusCycle]

@Stella Hohenheim Hitachi had patented the technology used to make this 1 inch sized drive. They alleged Magicstor had simply copied them.

[@SOU6900]

Wonder how that one ended...🤔

[@ethan043]

Been watching your channel for close to 10 years and I'm still hooked. Every video is entertaining. Keep up the good work!

[@GumikoVT]

I remember in the early psp days back when a 512mb memory stick was crazy expensive Datel released a small 4gb hard drive that plugged into the memory stick slot and hooked onto the battery slot, I wanted that so bad.

[@cjmarsh504]

CompUSA! A name I've haven't heard in a while.

[@cfltheman]

Just another member of the dead company club.

[@cjmarsh504]

@@cfltheman Store that came and went

[@SOU6900]

Didn't Tiger Direct buy out CompUSA?

[@cjmarsh504]

@@SOU6900 I have no idea

[@cfltheman]

@@SOU6900 I think they did. They also bought out another company too. I might have been Circuit City.

[@endersftd]

In 2006, a desktop Linux distro should have no issue mounting/unmounting one of these - not much different than Windows or Mac. The instructions provided would be what you'd use if you were running without a desktop environment.

[@LightTheUnicorn]

I love Microdrives, even with the storage technology we have today, I can't help but be amazed by them. Tiny technical marvels. That's an awesome use for one!

[@bf0189]

My nomad player that got used heavily when I was in HS in the mid 2000s had a cute 4GB microdrive! I believe you could use it as a portable HDD too. Very cool and cute stuff. It was reliable too since I dropped it several times on concrete.

[@miawgogo]

That Linux guide is a throw back to pain, I'm so glad that desktop Linux is slowly(heavy empahis on slowly) getting somewhat more user friendly.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

It definitely got better since then. I've been using Linux on my PCs since 2003 and decided to go with Debian based systems in 2009 and things have definitely improved regarding userfriendliness. It's really just depending on frontends and someone who designs it.

[@mikedw6748]

I've been using the latest Ubuntu 20.10 on an old school HP Pavilion G6 and I was very impressed. The issue is just the lack of software.

[@ivanf.8489]

It's getting a lot better. Now the only problem is the lack of "drivers" from companies that make hardware and the lack of some commercial software.

[@twobitgamer]

Love the little random headlight / turn signals test at the end.

[@larrywilliams8010]

I used to have a Palm Lifedrive, and it used a 4GB microdrive. Molasses slow, but still cool.

[@richardthunderbay8364]

I had 1 GB IBM microdrive which I used with a Jornada 720 palmtop computer. I got a lot of good use out of it. I thought it was really cool at the time.

[@kbhasi]

That reminds me of a "Toshiba USB 0.85 Hard Drive 8 GB" that I saw at a pharmacy (or "drugstore") checkout in around 2009 or so! I never bought one though. (2:52) (0:47) Actually, it's "ThumbDrive" which is Trek's brand name for USB flash drives, and I remember reading somewhere that they were the first company to produce USB flash drives. Other brand names include "PenDrive" from the company of the same name, and "Jump Drive" from Lexar. I usually refer to them as USB flash drives as I prefer generic terms over brand names in most cases. (2:27) I believe that's similar to what happened with the Toshiba hard drive I mentioned. (4:34) I believe this was before some system service that could automatically mount external storage. Also, I've a feeling the "lsblk" command didn't exist back then, or whoever was writing that had not heard of it.

[@BenjermenB]

I actually have one of the 8gb 0.85" ones at work, unfortunately it's dead but I tore it apart and it is definitely has the 0.85" drive in it

[@josephlucas502]

I had a 4GB Western Digital one of these back in the day. It was amazing carrying that kind of capacity around in my pocket compared to the 128MB flash drives of the time.

[@HavocSun]

Either the Thrift stores in your area our the best ever or your the luckiest thrifter I've ever seen!

[@jed-henrywitkowski6470]

@@craigjensen6853 Mine is great for millennial homemakers who are into the whole retro 1950s/60s thing. Like my sister! They do carry function electronics. The oldest tends to be something that I would have seen new when I was in high school, which is still too recent. Now, something that brings back memories of my prepubescent years is generally a neat find! Even better, if it's something my dad might have been familiar with when he was a young man. (He was into electronics and bikes as a kid/teen.)

[@cfothough]

@@craigjensen6853 My local goodwill was trying to sell corroded batteries last time I was there, so I'd say a coffee maker is pretty nice in comparison

[@darkfalzx]

Years ago found one of these inside an iPod Mini. It didn't work, sadly, but what an unexpected place to discover a tiny spinning HDD!

[@basicforge]

Compact flash is a kind of IDE interface actually.

[@squirlmy]

I've been using them in adapters in 8088 and 8086 "IBM clone" PCs. While they are too unreliable and too slow to work well as OS drives in more recent PCs, they are several times faster than the old MFM drives, which were still sometimes called Winchester Drives. I also found "invented by Hitachi and IBM" clumsily worded. They didn't have to "invent" much here, they just had to make adjustments to the manufacturing process to be smaller.

[@MrDuncl]

@@squirlmy But IBM did invent the hard drive. Look up the specs and weight of their RAMAC 350 :-)

[@lucasn0tch]

I knew it was a Microdrive based on the size. Speaking of which, it was unthinkable in the late 2000s that SD cards and USB flash drives / flash memory / thumb drives would overtake computer hard drives of that era. How technology progresses fast...

[@Mr_ToR]

OMG man! I had that same Gateway 2000 PC. Mine was initially 486SX with 4MB but then I upgraded it to 486DX and to 16MB. It had the best keyboard ever with an awesome macro feature on it to assign to the additional function keys. The monitor was so nice too.

[@JesseNeckred]

Drives are typically automatically mounted in Linux now. Or you can choose to mount the drive manually.

[@ChrisD__]

But auto mounting drives is bloat /s

[@EvertGuzman]

If I remember correctly, even in 2006 manually mounting wasn’t necessary unless you were doing something custom

[@you_just]

"Wait, that's not the smallest USB drive ever- hold on"

[@ugzz]

These are neat! I have a "puck" shape hard drive that is almost this size, and the puck has a little pigtail coming out of it for the usb so no extension needed. It cleverly tucks inside the casing too! I actually still use it occasionally and it has a bootable linux mint installer on it right now.

[@video99couk]

When I first saw the KZbin thumbnail for this, I though it was another knock-off 2TB USB storage device. But I was a factor of about 1000 off and of course it's a legitimate device.

[@szr8]

6:30 Was a bit blown away at first that a HDD would actually match it's advertised size going by 1024 factors, until the shell was opened to reveal the drive was 2.2 GB...

[@oldfag_adventures]

computers were designed to work in gibibytes and humans create memory in gigabytes. gibibytes are 1024³ bytes where gigabytes are 1000³ bytes creating that difference in storage expectation.

[@sajithavp4822]

I like this channel different from other tech channels I was born on 2005, i got used to micro sd's and hard discs and pen drives. I didn't know about this so cool.

[@TheComputerGuy96]

"TOUCH ME!" No thanks, I just washed my hands.

[@UncleMikeRetro]

Man! Thanks for taking it apart for us! I saw a lot of gadgets in Germany back in the late 90's when I lived there just like this. Me Want! Just to play with it.

[@eddycolangelo]

Since the disk is so small and has very litte inertia, microdives usually don't keep their disks spinning all the time like regular hard disks. Instead, they spin-up when they have to access data and spin down when they go back to idle. They operate basically like floppies, you hear the disk spinning only when you're actually accessing data on the disk. That's probably why you could not hear it on power on and also why it looked so quiet in operation.

[@lukeson8934]

the microdrive sounds so cute, "the little drive that could"

[@harley3514]

Those linux instructions are terminal instructions that would work no matter what desktop environment, or lack, you were using. However, even back in 2006, that entire process was automated with a GUI with nearly any desktop environment, just like it is on Windows. Those instructions make it look complicated, but it's really just as simple as it was on Windows even back in 2006 since those instructions are just the low-level commands for it (no different if you decided to mess with a flash drive on windows with the command prompt)

[@JessicaFEREM]

Elecom sells in japan, I've bought one of their imported mice and the packaging was all Japanese. Wouldn't Suprise me if they sold it in Japanese stores or something.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Yep I can confirm on the packaging, as I have an Elecom wireless ergo mouse with blue LED I got from their official eBay store, and it's a very nice mouse as I use it with my Thinkpad which I often use while sitting on my couch, and some mice won't track well on the armrest because of the light brown/tan color, and somewhat raised pattern, but the Elecom handles it no problem, and the battery in it has lasted well over a year with near daily use.

[@JessicaFEREM]

​@@CommodoreFan64 I have the CapClip dinky little Bluetooth mouse that you can take anywhere, even where you normally wouldn't have room. it also has a very strong connection, and very good and precise tracking.

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@JessicaFEREMI was looking at one of those, but even though I'm a small person(5ft 4in, 142lbs), I have big hands, and Just looking at those made my hands want to cramp up lol!

[@JessicaFEREM]

@@CommodoreFan64 It's not that bad, I've easily been able to play a rhythm game that requires a lot of precise movement. but I also hold my mouse in a claw grip with my thumb and pinky but have a palm on top, so it wasn't that uncomfy. the only complaint is that it weighs almost nothing, but you could stuff something in the empty space to weight it up a little.

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

I wonder just how much more the MicroDrive format could go, it would be super cool to see a large capacity on one of these. Also nice mini CRT in the background!

[@Alexis_du_60]

I just so happen to have one of these tiny CRT TVs too, they're adorable, yet finicky, although they're perfect if you want to learn yoke adjustements on CRTs ^^

[@Windo0ows]

a

[@szr8]

5:00 For the record, those instructions were quite old even for the time. Auto mounting existed by 2006.

[@johnrickard8512]

Also, wouldn't "dmesg|tail" also likely show the drive? Driving Linux is much like a manual transmission - intimidating to beginners, simple as sliced bread to those in the know.

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Nice just woke up just in time for a new video of my Friend Kevin. Stay safe.

[@user-kc1tf7zm3b]

Nothing says I am more obsessed with the 2000s and living 20 years behind the times than driving an antique first generation Mazda 3 BK Series. Oh well, at least it is designed in Japan, so it cannot be that bad after all these years, eh?

[@misterhat144]

In 2006/2007, that thing would've auto-mounted in most Linux distributions.

[@DrGooseDuckman]

Just started watching your channel and thank you for the great content. Just wanted to say that you have a voice that's very distinct, and very well suited for this sort of thing. I could see your stuff being played for generations to come to be honest, and the content is every bit as good as the voice. Sort of a tech Ken Burns vibe going. I appreciate you bruh.

[@jmtikka]

The same type of hard drives were also used in PCMCIA hard drives. They appeared a few years earlier (late 1990s) and the capacities where much smaller.

[@jazbell7]

I have one of those "QuickDrive" units from several years ago. I still have Windows server 2008 distribution on it and it still works.

[@nw7696]

I remember back in the 80's me telling people that one day music and videos will be stored on and played from non-moving hardware, they laughed so hard at me that I just walked away. I hope that they remember that, I do! 🤣👍🏻 I was right, we sure have evolved storage wise since then.

[@ronniepirtlejr2606]

That is Simply Amazing! A vintage micro hard drive versus a cheap solid state digital memory disk. That's kind of like a lot of things nowadays. Everything is cheap and It doesn't really give you a fizzy filling inside like it used to. Cassettes, 8tracks, vinyl and compact disc versus digital music. Even when you put your music or data on a flash card, it still feels cheap. Lol Don't get me wrong, I am happy that we have flash memory. I wish society would revert back to making things of high-quality with new technology!👍🇺🇸

[@SOU6900]

Well vinyl is starting to make a comeback I hear...

[@sersoft_corp]

I can say with certainty that in 2006, Linux could mount usb storage devices automatically. It couldn't write to ntfs without going through a complex process though.

[@bobingabout]

2GB USB hard drive now feels very "Why?", but then I remembered about the early days. in 2006 as you mention, USB pen drives were still fairly new, and rare to reach above the 256MB range. of course by 2008 USB memory sticks were easily pushing above the 1GB mark.

[@RetroTechChris]

Great review! I've always wondered about these. Loved how the inside of it was just a standard adapter with a micro drive!

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

It's so amazing that someone can make a disk drive that's this small physically, and even smaller like those ones you showed us later!

[@ThereminHero]

The engineering and construction of those drives still impresses me.

[@BlastingKap]

Just found your video. I have one of those USB drives with a Toshiba 8GB 0.85 disk it. The enclosure looks very similar to what's in your video for those Japanese models. They definitely made it to North America, bought mine in Ontario in the mid 2000's.

[@elgigante2001]

Hard Drive technology really evolved over the years for home PC use. Going from only 5 MB capacity, being the size of a small shoebox, weighing as much as a steel brick, and costing $5000 in the 1980s. To being the size of a matchbook, having up to 16 GB of capacity, and costing $40 in a USB adapter in 2006 in interesting. Heck I'm still in awe when I hold a Micro SD card that can hold 1TB in something the size of my thumbnail.

[@DarkGT]

Maybe it's 2.2 because it will appear as 1.99 (close to 2) when formatted.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

I had one of those back in the day - different brand, even more compact! Basically a square only slightly bigger than the CF card MicroDrive inside (but square instead of rectangular) with the USB-A plug "pop-out" the side, so when folded, it was a perfect compact little square with the USB plug nestled inside. Sadly, I was using it to transfer files from a client's computer, and the client's laptop's power jack was flaky, so I had the power brick under the power plug holding it in place - the USB port was right next to it, and so my MicroDrive sat on the power brick while it was in use - cooking the poor thing.

My N91 has a microdrive as well. I use it even today while praying for it not to fail, since it's impossible get replacements for because of its proprietary interface /fw.

[@mepm]

I had a smaller form factor USB hard drive than that, it was 4gb and thinner square shaped with the usb cable built in that folded into the drive case. Probably used the same drive inside.

[@waltberger7885]

I remember when these first came out, computer mag i got had a write up on them. I owned a 2gb one that came free with a Sager laptop I bought in like 2003? It worked although slowly lol. Yeah those .85 in ones never came to US shores to my knowledge. Nice video :-)

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

9:12 Yeah they really are great for vintage computers. I've seen people using these for the Commodore Amiga computers, like the A500 and the A1200 and using them as internal drives. They are perfect since they are so small and fit even into the limited space of the keyboard-computer formfactor.

[@thelastvanguard6529]

I have an old Philips mp3 player with the 8gb HDD variant and never had a problem, pretty durable little drives.

[@kandigloss6438]

I had a computer that was screwed up and the only OS that would run on it was linux at one point, I do not miss those days, lol

[@wearefromserbia9714]

Actually this is pretty amazing to see

[@Whipster-Old]

I had one of these micro hard drives years ago, I believe I picked it up at Fry's. I used the heck out of it through the early 2000s.

[@bluephreakr]

That's selling Linux short these days. That QuickieDrive _should_ work in most mainstream Linux distributions without much fuss, so say, Debian (Ubuntu, Mint, Crunchbang, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS and the like), Arch (Manjaro, ArcoLinux, Anarchy Linux and the like), Fedora / Red Hat Enterprise Linux, &c. Most USB-connected SATA interfaces I've tried typically give no trouble whatsoever so this shouldn't be any different.

[@bland9876]

The only USB storage devices that I have seen that are about this small are ones that use some kind of actual SSD not whatever the normal flash is in a thumb drive which if I remember correctly is even worse than emmc and that's already bad

[@oldtwinsna8347]

These were lifesavers for amateur photographers on trips that used digital cameras. Solid state was so expensive and limited space so you had to bring a laptop with you on trips (heavy and a pain) to do data dumps so you could wipe the card and reuse it. But these came out to cure that since the storage was large enough. Was only a couple years though before solid state prices came down quite a bit in large capacities.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

This is pretty cool! If i have had one of these bad boys back then, this would have been insanely useful. I only had a 20MB and 512MB stick back then and of course those were full rather quickly. Especially if you wanted to move around large audio files and video files. I had no idea these microdrive USB storages were even a thing. Except if you maybe used an Adapter, like the ones you commonly had as a Multicard 3,5' insert for your desktop PC.

[@uK8cvPAq]

I had an MP3 player with one of these inside it.

[@RCfromtheNYC]

I forgot about these. I remember seeing them in CompUSA and also in Incredible Universe. I have a working 8GB Memorex Mega TravelDrive USB hard drive which is smaller that the QuickiDrive..it has a slideout USB plug that makes the unit very close to the size of a CompactFlash card. But it heats up within seconds so I rarely use it.

[@johnruschmeyer5769]

It would have been interesting to see the speed results from using the CF card in the QuickiDrive. That would have removed any question of whether the speed difference was influenced by the CF reader hardware.

[@vwestlife]

I tested it and the results were nearly identical.

[@wohdinhel]

I remember one of my friends having a USB drive very similar to this that was 8GB. I also remember thinking that was an extremely excessive amount lmao. Oh, how time flies!

[@Bobby-cm7vu]

It's crazy to think even a phones is uses at least 8GB today. I remeber when 4GB was insane.

[@funposting8912]

I just came across someone else comparing hard disks, the 0.85 inch disk appears to have been used in the Nokia N91, which has jogged my memory, and I now recall wanting to buy such a phone years back simply for that disk. I would still absolutely love one of those Japanese thumb drives that included one, does anyone have any more information on their existence or availability? I might need to venture into the foreign waters of Yahoo auctions…

[@gmcmaster1985]

Compact Flash (for Storage anyway) is pin compatible with IDE

[@TheErador]

Kinda... It's like XT-IDE or something i forget, subset of the ide standard, maybe some small differences.

[@gmcmaster1985]

@@TheErador nope it’s definitely not XT/8 bit IDE, as there are passive adaptors that let you connect them straight to IDE

[@squirlmy]

@@TheErador XT-IDE is an adapter for 8-bit ISA, allowing Compact Flash to be used as "hard drives". There are no differences between IDE hard drives and Compact Flash standards, it is exactly the same standard. CF was primarily developed for Cameras and video, it wasn't practical to use as a main drive with an OS when it came out. It would ware out too quickly and was unreliable for Windows or even Linux, so the two classes of devices didn't compete directly. But in early DOS, before memory management of the 386, there were severe limitations for memory, and the MFM drivers were really slow and small. The first were 5-10MB, getting to 40MB or more with 286s, of course the same hard drive tech had been used for mainframes, particularly DEC PDP and VAX minicomputers, PC users were getting "leftover" tech. I'm not sure why you are offering answers if you aren't very familiar with the subject. You're not fooling anyone.

[@squirlmy]

@@gmcmaster1985 It certainly is! Or rather there seems to be some confusion here. XT-IDE actually isn't a "standard" at all, it is the name of a kind of adapter card that allows Compact Flash cards to be used in 8-bit IDE (and is named after the IBM PC-XT). I don't really understand why you're saying it's "definitely not". I have one set up in an original Compaq Portable 1, and I'm getting ready to install another. It is eerily similar experience to installing running an SSD in place of a "disk drive" in a more modern PC. Note that without installing a new custom BIOS, 8088, 8086 and even 286 PCs can only use a 512MB "Hard Drive" at most, (there's also limitations in DOS 3.3 and earlier for addressing drive memory) The successor to IDE was called Enhanced IDE or EIDE. That standard was also called ATA-2, Fast ATA, Fast IDE, and retroactively called Parallel ATA, or PATA. (in contrast to SATA). IBM tried to defeat this standard which was agreed to as an "open" standard among "clone" makers. IBM tried to re-take control with an MCA (MicroChannel Architecture) bus, which was indeed technically superior in several ways, but EIDE was cheaper and worked well enough that IBM had to drop it's PS/2 line and return to IDE PCs.

[@gmcmaster1985]

@@squirlmy XT-IDE is the 8-bit form of IDE, so called because it was in the original IBM XT, the "modern" standard is a 16-bit wide bus, and that is what we now call IDE. There may well be an adaptor card to use CF cards on an XT based system, but this is not the original meaning of the term, CFs are fully IDE compatible and the system you plug them into will see them as such and not know any difference, have a read here: nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-original-8-bit-ide-interface.html

[@nathanielbest3541]

I'm curious to see if the write/verify speeds are different for the micro drive when used with an actual ATA/IDE controller vs a controller on the USB connection board.

[@Danny-wv8ec]

Great video, I didn't know these existed. I subscribed because I love his voice for some reason.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

Wow, Thank you Toshiba - amazing engineers doing the impossible.

[@CARLiCON]

wow, never heard of these before, thanks for sharing

[@gblargg]

Recently I saw a video featuring an even smaller drive, the Toshiba MK8003MTD. 0.85" platter diameter. It was used in a very old model cellphone, for one, having the same interface and size as an SD/MMC card (just thicker).

[@geospart]

My late wife bought me a 1GB one like that in I think 2001/02. I believe she paid about $50. Around that time thumb drives where sold in MB's like maybe 32 MB's and such, so very little storage. I would use it to sneaker-net things back and forth to work.

[@Bboyman1150]

I have that same exact small black and white TV that you have in the background!

[@paulisthebest3uk]

i recently got a 486 build going (bad motherboard from ebay - battery corrosion), needed cleaning up with alcohol and done a bodge wire, and had to replace the keyboard rom IC, point is wow yeah i agree these would be great for vintage computers. I currently have 2 CF cards which i hotswap depending on my mood, one has dos 6.22 and windows 3.11, and one has winndows 95

[@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862]

I remember watching and subbing to u when I was a kid.. This been ages now

[@igorszamaszow171]

My first reaction was "Wow! So small, and it's from 2006? Amazing!". And then, about half a second later I noticed that it says 2 GB, not TB :)

[@FranklyPeetoons]

Many pre-2010 USB cables were so dang robust. Silvery. Metal braids behind flexible clear plastic. Beefy plugs. So much beef. I still use some of those cables today, even though the equipment with which they shipped is long obsolete and was discarded years ago. I have a big bag of bulletproof vintage USB cables. That bag is "my precious". Or one of "my preciouses" anyway.

[@63ch31]

The transparent usb-cable was a real 2000s nostalgia stab

[@Narayan_1996]

Man, this video is awesome, I love this kind of content ^^ :3

[@FrankoBurolo]

That's outdated instructions for Linux, even for that time. Or, at best, we could say they wanted to make the instructions universal? I was just getting into GNU/Linux around 2005/2006, and in the distros I was using back than (mostly Mepis and Ubuntu), USB external storage devices were already "plug and play". It's possible that not every desktop distro was able to do it yet at the time, I wouldn't know... But in my experience, it was already plug and play back then. Even today I see instructions for Linux that are outdated or badly informed, mind you...

[@QuantumVirus7]

Is there something wrong with me that this channel brought me such peace and mastalgia.

[@samanthagriffinv2.08]

I actually like the idea of a usb hard drive in a small form factor like that similar to a usb thumb drive

[@gopherbone697]

I really enjoyed this one! I'd never heard of hard drives of any size being sold inside USB dongles! Love it!

[@Sb129]

what a time capsule of a product for the Y2Ks

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Wow, I hadn't heard before that the MD actually made it up to 16GB!

[@4LO4LO]

You know it's bad when you're using vinyl electrical tape to make something LESS sticky. Thanks for the video, it's always interesting to see old odd tech like this.

[@Xpurple]

I've got a similar micro-drive. It still works well even after these years. Though, I almost never use it. Two gigs just doesn't cut it at this point.

[@steveg5122]

Gotta give them props for using the actual capacity on the packaging not the higher decimal number.

[@TubelabCom]

I still have my 4GB Hitachi Microdrive that I used in my Sony DSC-F828 camera in 2005. Both still work. Flash memory of the time was not fast enough for real time 640 X 480 video, so the Microdrive was needed for video recording in the camera. I think it was abound $300 on sale at Circuit City when I got it. The drive in a USB Compact Flash reader might be a bit smaller than the device in this video.