PCMCIA Hard Drives Guide
PCMCIA hard drives offer you portability and capacity comparable with USB flash drives but at the time
are much cheaper than the latter.
They come in PC Card Type-II card form. There is always at least one Type-II PC Card port in every laptop, although this doesn't mean you will be able to use it with yours. The "PCMCIA hard drives" name is a bit misleading, because all drives demand PC Card CardBus interface and cannot work with the first PC Card PCMCIA standard port.
Generally, laptops manufactured before 1995 contain first, 16-bit version of PC Card interface that, in
simplify, is an ISA bus external connection. Computers manufactured later, contain a PC Card interface supporting CardBus that has all features of PCI bus with hot plug and plug and play capabilities.
If refurbished laptop you have bought was produced before 1995, you won't be able to use PCMCIA hard
drives as they are all designed for CardBus interface.
If you would like to know more, read our PC Card, PCMCIA, CardBus Guide.
PCMCIA hard drives have the same mechanical design and magnetic storage method as traditional 3.5" or 2.5" hard disks but in 1.8" size. When choosing such drive, you should pay attention to the same parameters as for traditional internal hard drives. If you would like to find more information about this topic read our Laptop Hard Drives Guide.
PCMCIA drive has size of credit card and weights less than a cell phone giving you up to 10GB of capacity. It is a real masterpiece of mechanical and electrical design. Toshiba is the biggest manufacturer of PCMCIA hard drives. The model you can see at the photo is a 5GB drive with 3990rpm and 15ms average seek time. It costs about $230. Transfer rates are comparable to flash drives and range between 11.5MB/s and 16MB/s. Although there is a lot of sophisticated mechanics in PCMCIA hard drives, they are designed to withstand shocks they are exposed during every-day handling and transport.
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