For a long time with its IBM MicroDrive Series the sole supplier of hard drives in the Compact Flash format. Late 2002 acquisition Hitachi Complete IBM Hard Disk Drive Business (incl. Production and development department). The Hitachi drives are therefore based on IBM quality and are considered to be mature and reliable. But keep in mind that a hard drive is a "mechanical" device and will never reach the operational reliability of a memory card. In a hard disk floats the read head of the disk on rotating disks, the air serves as padding. Therefore, hard drives are also not suitable for use in mountains, because at lower air pressure at high altitudes from 3000m, the air cushion is too thin, so the read head can be placed on the rotating disk. The lesser evil in such a case would be a partial destruction of the magnetic disk, but usually it becomes a head crash and thus come to a total defect. When battery life my camera no difference between the hard disk or a CF memory card can be recognized. Only in the startup phase drives are somewhat intense consumption, which is why you should avoid frequent switching on and off. And now my personal, painful experience: Before 1GB-quality Hitachi hard drive I had foolishly bought one of these NoName drive with 2.2GB, which is then soon smoked in cold weather in my F828 camera - the saved recordings, I could not save time. If you look at this review about the Hitachi drive, because you are also a victim of 2.2GB NoName disc, you may be using the freeware program "Smart Recovery" trying to save the images (at least partly).
