maximus729
08-30-2001, 12:33 PM
I have been trying to determine what type of expansion pack to get with a compaq ipaq h3670. There are pc cards and compact flash memory cards. The compact flash cards will save their data no matter what when you take power away. So can you take out say a 2 gig pc card from the unit and will it still have all of its info on it or will it get erased. Probably a dumb question but i'm confused about the differences between flash memory and pc card storage cards. Any help would be great
Sprint_ST_NYC
08-30-2001, 01:59 PM
Both should keep their data. Any 2GB PCMCIA cards you've seen are probably actually hard drives as opposed to flash memory. The biggest Flash cards I've ever seen are 800 MB, and cost well over $1000. Hard drives don't lose data when you turn them off - I've pulled data off of hard drives that haven't been turned on in years. As long as they spin up...
Flash RAM and HD's don't lose data until you actually erase it. Regular RAM loses everything once it is unpowered. The memory in an Ipaq is actually RAM, not Flash RAM - this is for both cost and security purposes. Flash RAM is MUCH more expensive than regular RAM. And if you lose your Ipaq somewhere, it's sort of nice to know that after a few days, strangers won't be able to read your personal e-mail, etc...