Boot From iPod

[Eastend]

I have an iPod Photo 60GB. Well today just for the fun of it, I used Carbon Copy Cloner and Cloned my whole system over to the iPod. Works great, shows my iPod at the top as my startup disk, in fact I'm typing this from the iPod disk. Hey, only had a 20 GB drive on this old Ti PowerBook, now I got a 60GB drive and very portable. LOL

Brian

[munkle]

It's a cool trick but I wouldn't try doing anything too strenuous on it! Great to show off though!

[mad jew]

It's a cool trick but I wouldn't try doing anything too strenuous on it! Great to show off though!

Is that just because of the overheating thing?

[Eastend]

It's a cool trick but I wouldn't try doing anything too strenuous on it! Great to show off though!

So far it's been on for about 30 minutes and it's in my hand now, it is not getting hot at all, in fact the iPod is cool. Do not know what good this is, but at least you can do it, probably boot back into the Ti's disk soon. I guess if you were on the road and you wanted to fix the permissions or repair the disk, this would do it quickly. Attach a pic, but it's not very clear.

Brian

[munkle]

Is that just because of the overheating thing?

More to do with the speed thing than anything else :)

[mad jew]

More to do with the speed thing than anything else :)

Ahh, I see.

Are there any figures on what sort of RPM these drives run at? Can you compare the iPod drives to standard Mac laptop and desktop drives?

How's it coping with the system Eastend?

[Eastend]

Ahh, I see.

Are there any figures on what sort of RPM these drives run at? Can you compare the iPod drives to standard Mac laptop and desktop drives?

How's it coping with the system Eastend?

Not really sure, but I think it was just a little slower than the internal Ti drive and that's a slow drive. It was of course hooked up in chain through firewire. So the Internal Ti 500 drive was no 5400 RPM drive, it was slow, but it was not too bad actually. If someone did not have anything to use disk utility with than the iPod could do it easily. I think I'll take this with me whenever I have to go somewhere with my PowerBook, you never know when something might go wrong.

Brian

[peterparker]

I read an article somewhere on doing this and the reason they stated for not doing this for any length of time had to do with the MTBF and the life of the drive. They said the drive in the iPod was not designed to be running for long periods. Under normal music listening use it reads and buffers several songs and so it doesn't have to be spinning a lot. Maybe the new iPods have better drives?

[iGary]

Nothing wrong with doing this if you'd like to have a bootable backup.

I have a bootable backup on my Maxtor, and one on my 40GB iPod photo, just in case.

I lose anything, I'm up the creek, so I like having two, but no, I would not use it as a main drive.

I use my 20GB iPod as a backup for my iBook as well. :D

[Eastend]

Nothing wrong with doing this if you'd like to have a bottable backup.

I have a bootable backup on my Maxtor, and one on my 40GB iPod photo, just in case.

I lose anything, I'm up the creek, so I like having two, but no, I woul dnot use it as a main drive.

I use my 20GB iPod as a backup for my iBook as well. :D

That is a good idea, I will keep a backup of my PowerBook on the iPod Photo. I ran it for 40 minutes as a startup disk and it did not get hot. Probably will never do this again, but it is a easy portable backup solution.
I also keep a backup on a Buffalo external drive, but the iPod can be used as a portable solution.

Brian

[Macmaniac]

My 40gb 4th gen iPod has 10.3.8 installed its one of my two backup drives. In addition I got a 160gb HD as my main external drive, I love being prepared.

[TMA]

Putting a Mac OS X install or backup on an iPod is a good emergency startup system. Yipes remember when you could have an emergency boot up FLOPPY!?

I think the reason it's not recommended is that these tiny HD's have a much lower life span. They won't withstand as many power cycles (spin up and down) If you're going to use one to run OS X i'd make sure you have the option to spin down HD when not in use CHECKED OFF in the Energy saving panel.

[Plymouthbreezer]

I run Tiger off my iPod... Works good, but gets pretty darn hot for me after 30 min or so...