Mini-Disk drive for COMPUTER

[Zelgadis]

I'm looking for a mini-disk drive (not thumb drives, pen drives, usb drives or anything of that small sort) [that uses the MINI-Disks that hold 74 minutes of music (650 megs of data) and is in a little hard case] that I can put into my computer so i can record data and music for my computer that is internal not external.

I put the little things in the brackets because when ever i do a search i can't find what I'm looking for and I've tried all the local computer stores (not compusa or office depot [DUH!]) and they all said they stopped stocking them years ago and doesn't know anybody who still sells them.

[redhat81]

You will have a tough time finding them as the Mini-disc was a commerical disaster in terms of data storage worldwide and in terms of music storage in the Americas.

You might be able to find a used one, but keep in mind that the MD's that store 650 MB are different than those you'd find in the store today. I'm pretty sure the 650 MB ones were "double-density" disks or something.

[Zelgadis]

thx for the info. I have put this into consideration and all. And yes I am looking for a used one so if you know some one who is selling one... I'm interested.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Check music stores.

A lot of people still use MiniDiscs to do 8 track recording on high-end boards. I'd be willing to bet that a music store might sell replacement units for those boards.

But why would you want a MiniDisc, anyways? There are more standard storage options out there, and they're bound to be cheaper. Heck, for what you'd pay for a package of 5 minidiscs, you could get 100 CD-Rs.

[APwrs]

I wouldn't count MiniDiscs out just yet. Sony is trying to revitalize the market by selling a MiniDisc player that plays both regular MiniDiscs and MP3s that are stored on MiniDiscs. I've looked at it at my local Target store, and it actually looks quite nice.

[redhat81]

Oh, in some parts of the world, people use only MD's. CD's are kinda annoying. The thing is, for data storage, they're not so widespread.

I've seen a couple in some electronics markets in Tokyo and Hong Kong, but I've never seen any outside of there.

[APwrs]

Well one of my points of mentioning what I did was the fact that if you're going to play MP3s off a MiniDisc, then there has to be some way to get the MP3 onto the MiniDisc from a computer. Considering this is a new product from Sony, they're not going to expect people to try and hunt for old computer MiniDisc drives, because the majority of people wouldn't find them and Sony wouldn't really sell any of these new players. Therefore, Sony has to be coming out soon with a way to get the MP3s from the computer onto the MiniDisc, so maybe they'll also try to bring back MiniDiscs for data storage again. That is unless, of course, the MiniDisc player has a built in MP3 encoder, in which case you would just plug speaker output into an input jack and have the player itself create and store the MP3s on the disc. If that's the case, then everything I said above is rather moot... I'm just not sure which case is *the* case.

[andre]

I realise that this is an old thread...but

I had done some research on this same subject a while ago (1-2 years ago). I stopped my research as soon as I found out that a minidisc only stores about 40MB, the music that is stored on it is heavily compressed with loss of data (lossy compression).

but if you're still looking... I know they still look cool... I think you would have to check out the industial side of the music buiz. and probably spend big buck$ on professional computer MD device. :(

ps. portables (MD) don't last long, so I can't suggest getting a used one.

[redhat81]

Originally posted by andre
I realise that this is an old thread...but

I had done some research on this same subject a while ago (1-2 years ago). I stopped my research as soon as I found out that a minidisc only stores about 40MB, the music that is stored on it is heavily compressed with loss of data (lossy compression).

but if you're still looking... I know they still look cool... I think you would have to check out the industial side of the music buiz. and probably spend big buck$ on professional computer MD device. :(

ps. portables (MD) don't last long, so I can't suggest getting a used one.

They use ATRAC compression.

A few years ago, in Japan, a Mini-disc camcorder was released that use MD's that stored up to 650 MB of space. These quickly died out and sony is now going after marketing the Memory Stick and its children.

[DMR]

Just some FYI people:

This forum is for posts concerned with the buying, selling, and trading of hardware. This is not the place for discussing the merits or demerits of that hardware; those types of posts belong in /dev/random.

Thanks-

:)

[RedMap]

I've seen them in Japan some time ago. They take either the normal 40MB disks or the double density 80MB disks, - can't remember where I saw them, it may have been yodobashi at http://www.yodobashi.com/ although I'm not sure. Can't remember if they were internal or what.

Whether they work with Linux is another question.

If you get em working on linux don't forget to report back!!! :)

...anyone know of internal/external mini-DV (or micro-DV) drives that work with linux?

[Zelgadis]

wow! I haven't been here for a while got caught up in school and work and... Boy wow this threads still going? Thx for answering guys. The reason is my friends dad picked one up in mexico and most of the newer mini disks made by sony, imation and i beleive maxell store 650 megs of data and me and my friends are a bit clumsey and most of our cd's get scratched. As for the mini disk music players by sony and now some other brands hook up to the usb or firewire port and some older ones through the serial port. but I'd be willing to pay the extra price for the smaller size and extra protection.

[RedMap]

hi!

The tech I'm impressed with are the Compact Flash (CF) cards. They're really tiny - smaller than a Mini Disk, available up to 2GB at the mo, can plug into a cheap little adaptor for USB or firewire / IEEE 1349, and no moving parts!
These little things are the future!

However, I'm not impressed with the price yet - 450 pounds in the UK for a 2GB card.