Good Idea/Bad Idea: 7-in-1 USB Media Drive

[sechs]

So, the new laptop doesn't come with a floppy drive, which isn't a big deal. However, I know that, sooner or later, I will want to use one; so, I have been looking at USB drives. I was also looking at getting a device to read the SmartMedia cards from my digital camera.

It was pointed out to me in another discussion that Mitsumi has a combo floppy and media reader (http://www.mitsumi.com/products/fa401amain.html). After poking around, it turns out that this drive costs about the same as buying acceptable separate floppy and media readers.

Realising that the more functions a device has, the more likely it will fail, does buying this device seem like a good idea or a bad idea?

Neither set of functions would be used very often, and it would be very convenient to only have one peripheral to keep track of.

Opinions?

 

[ddrueding]

Sounds good to me, so long as it supports the OSes you plan on using.

 

[LunarMist]

Is it bootable?

 

[Tea]

I'd go with it. Convenience is really important in laptops. And, for what it's worth, card readers and floppy drives are both things that rarely fail.

 

[Tea]

One thing: my 7-in-1 media reader (which I rarely use these days, as I tend to prefer using the laptop's PCMCIA CF reader and then transferring to my Athlon via network) comes up as three drive letters, even though I nearly always want just Compact Flash. (Once in a blue moon it is possible that I might want to read Sony Memory Sucks.)

Anyway, if you don't like alphabet soup, the 7-in-1 might bug you.

 

[MaxBurn]

I have to second the annoyance with the drive letters. Nice to be able to read everything out there though.

 

[mubs]

I'll third the drive letter problem. Installed a 10-in-1 reader with 2 slots that gobbles up 2 drive letters.

But Tea's point about convenience is very important.

I take it everybody here prefers to pull the media out of the camera to transfer images? This is one thing that really bugs me - they need to put a wireless solution like Bluetooth in the camera so one can do the transfer without all the additional nonsense with cables and media. This is especially true if you've got a few crucial pics you want in the PC really quick, as opposed to full media.

 

[sechs]

Is it bootable?

I presume that this is a function of the computer and not the device...

 

[sechs]

Anyway, if you don't like alphabet soup, the 7-in-1 might bug you.

Since it'll rarely be in use, I don't see this as much of an issue. If I use it on the desktop, there might be some trouble, but only temporarily so.

 

[Pradeep]

I'll third the drive letter problem. Installed a 10-in-1 reader with 2 slots that gobbles up 2 drive letters.

But Tea's point about convenience is very important.

I take it everybody here prefers to pull the media out of the camera to transfer images? This is one thing that really bugs me - they need to put a wireless solution like Bluetooth in the camera so one can do the transfer without all the additional nonsense with cables and media. This is especially true if you've got a few crucial pics you want in the PC really quick, as opposed to full media.

A copule of the high-end Nikon DSLRs have an optional 802.11b attachment that you can use to automatically upload the pics taken to either your computer or an FTP server etc. I imagine the functionality will dribble down eventually.

 

[Fushigi]

I take it everybody here prefers to pull the media out of the camera to transfer images?

I generally leave the microdrive in the camera and hook up the cable. I hook up the charge cable at the same time.

I mostly picked up the 8-in-1 as a just-in-case. And it was free after rebate...

 

[sechs]

Sure, I *can* leave the media in the camera and hook up its USB cable; but that runs down the camera's batteries, is a bit ackward, and is a bit unwieldy when trying to read the photos in from four cards after you vacation.

It's also nice to have a reader for media that I don't immediately own.

 

[Mercutio]

Plus the media readers are usually WAY faster.

 

[sechs]

An update

Got the the drive in today.

Big plus is that Windows doesn't assign drive letters to the media readers until they're used. Also, since there's only two slots, plus the floppy, it'd only take up three letters at most.

Big negative is that it uses a USB hub, and the media reader and floppy are separate devices. To properly disconnect the drive, I have to stop both the media reader and floppy drive before pulling out the USB cable.

Later, I'll check to see if its bootable. Anyone have links to information on making bootable flash media?

 

[Mercutio]

Everything related to your computer has to support it for it to work. BIOS, OS and the device itself. The biggest problem at the moment is lack of BIOS support - my 5.5-year-old IBM 540 can boot off a thumb drive, but I don't have a single Athlon 64 machine that can do it.

In short, it probably won't work.

 

[sechs]

I have a sinking feeling that my BIOS does not. To boot the external floppy, I choose "USB-floppy" from the list; there is no "USB" option.

I was interested more out of curiousity than for an utility -- but it seems a shame that so much effort must go into something which should be so simple.

 

[blakerwry]

i believe the last 4 motherboards I've purchased support booting from USB devices... never tried though. I would be very surprised that an athlon64 board would not support the option to boot from USB floppy/zip (which intern allows booting from usb pen drives)

 

[EdwardK]

Hi sechs,

Is your laptop the IBM R50? The reason I ask is that I accidentally left a USB thumbdrive connected to my IBM T41 and rebooted my laptop. Upon reboot, my laptop tried to boot from the USB thumbdrive. Maybe your laptop can also boot from USB devices as well.

Cheers,
Edward

 

[sechs]

The laptop is an R51, but I was refering to a desktop computer in my previous post.

I wouldn't be surprised if the laptop can boot from a monkey.