iPod iPod Classic as a Reliable Hard Drive ?

[k3rnelkurtz]

I'm having a dilemma... I'm running out of space in the tiny 60 GB hard drive of my Macbook. So I figured it was time to get a USB external drive.. but then I also realized that that's basically what an iPod is... a mini external hard drive that is also a cool music player.

I have 1.5 GB left on my MacBook hard drive and I want to move all my music out of it so I can have a nice lightweight system again without concern for limited space (I do some amateur music/video work that also eats up space). The only thing that concerns me is the reliability of the iPod's hard drive. I would be totally dependent on it to not lose anything, or else my whole library will be gone. I am very careful with all my things so you can count on me never abusing my iPod. The biggest issue is that all my music is in lossless format... so would that curtail the iPod's hard drive life in any way? I know it would be working much harder to load my music because of its limited cache. And no, I'm not willing to compress my music to a lossy format.

I really like the new iPod and would love to have one... this is my only hesitation. Any insight would be helpful.

 

[mad jew]

Don't worry about the iPod's drive life expectancy with respect to how full it is (lossless tracks and all). What you need to take into account is the fact that even if you are very careful with your iPod, it'll be subjected to far more action than your laptop. Be careful not to jolt the iPod when changing tracks and you should be right though. Another thing to consider is that iPods are quite susceptible to being stolen.

Nevertheless, you need way more than 1.5GB of free space on your MacBook for it to run normally, so freeing up space on that drive should be a priority.

 

[n-abounds]

Yea, iPods are stolen way too frequently to be reliant on for all your music.

 

[thebrain74]

and the drives in ipod are not rated to last nearly as long as desktop ones, as they don't need to. Desktop drives must access data very frequently, whereas the ipod is designed to access data as little as possible. Playing lossless music on you ipod will dramatically lower its battery life (i don't know if that the question you were asking...)

 

[btallada9870]

I just got a 160 GB notebook hard drive for 100 dollars. Just get an external hard drive enclosure for it and use that. It's much more reliable. Then save some money and get an ipod too, they're great.

 

[k3rnelkurtz]

and the drives in ipod are not rated to last nearly as long as desktop ones, as they don't need to. Desktop drives must access data very frequently, whereas the ipod is designed to access data as little as possible. Playing lossless music on you ipod will dramatically lower its battery life (i don't know if that the question you were asking...)

I'm not concerned with battery life. I'm not going to be taking the iPod out a lot, I just like listening to music when I'm going to bed with headphones on.

But when you say they're not rated to last as long as desktop drives, how long are we talking about? I need the iPod to last me at least five years. Since all my music is lossless, is the hard drive prone to dying quicker?

 

[mad jew]

Five years is a long time for any sort of hard drive. Would an iPod and an external drive suffice? That way you'll have everything nicely backed up.

 

[speedemonV12]

I was also thinking about doing somethng like this. It seems like a good option. But I have the old iPod the one right before the iPod photo came out. Is there a way to turn this into a regular hard drive? So I could put other files on it also besides just music?

 

[caffeeneaddict]

I was also thinking about doing somethng like this. It seems like a good option. But I have the old iPod the one right before the iPod photo came out. Is there a way to turn this into a regular hard drive? So I could put other files on it also besides just music?

Just enable disk mode through iTunes under preferences.

 

[k3rnelkurtz]

Generally what would you say is the life span of an iPod hard disk?

 

[gnasher729]

Generally what would you say is the life span of an iPod hard disk?

Infinitely when used as an iPod playing music (only reading about one Megabyte per minute); not too bad if you use it for backups, but I really wouldn't use for an everyday disk drive. 250GB or even 500GB external USB drive is really, really cheap.