[Dark Sailor]

My father-in-law and three of his kids all climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,335 ft at summit) last month. All four of them took iPods along to listen to while climbing. At about 17,000 feet all of their iPods quit working. Upon finishing the climb and returning to base camp three of the four returned to functionality; the other never worked again. They were all HDD-based units (no flash memory, i.e. no Shuffles, Nanos).

At any rate, I thought this was pretty interesting since I have never seen any data on maximum altitude at which an iPod would function, or that altitude could actually render one nonfunctional.

[intake]

Damn, that's not very cool, and who would have though. Fortunately, at only 14,200 feet, I'm happy to report that my iPod still works

[Randman]

It's been covered and mentioned before.

[chabig]

The spec'd max altitude is 10,000 feet. http://www.apple.com/ipod/color/specs.html

Chris

[Damion]

I use mine skydiving and I take mine to 14,000 feet MSL all the time. There are a lot of people that jump with them all the time and I havent had or heard of any issues. They are mostly ipod mini's w/ 4 & 6 GB hdds.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Dark Sailor

My father-in-law and three of his kids all climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,335 ft at summit) last month. All four of them took iPods along to listen to while climbing. At about 17,000 feet all of their iPods quit working. Upon finishing the climb and returning to base camp three of the four returned to functionality; the other never worked again. They were all HDD-based units (no flash memory, i.e. no Shuffles, Nanos).

At any rate, I thought this was pretty interesting since I have never seen any data on maximum altitude at which an iPod would function, or that altitude could actually render one nonfunctional.

Apple has the data on maximum altitude for an iPod on their website.

If I recall correctly, the altitude operating limits on most hard drives are because of the heads. Once those crash, the drive won't work again.

[Dark Sailor]

Well, if nothing else I guess it's been documented that the envelope has been pushed to 17,000 feet.

[rambo47]

iPods while mountain climbing and skydiving?!?! Shouldn't you be concentrating on the task at hand?

[andreas_g4]

Originally Posted by rambo47

iPods while mountain climbing and skydiving?!?! Shouldn't you be concentrating on the task at hand?

Multitasking.

[Eriamjh]

Shoulda had nanos!

[Drakino]

Wow, at a max altitude of 10,000 ft (per the specs), that places some people homes above that here in Colorado. I wonder if Apple has ever used peoples city information in their registration to possibly reject a warranty claim.

[Gee4orce]

Hard drives are hermetically sealed. The difference in air pressure is probably what destroys them....

[jabackes]

if a hard drive is sealed, why are there breathing holes in them? you know the "dont cover this hole" bits?

there is also the guy who maid the oil-cooled PC and killed a HD by submerging it totally, it drained about 3/4cup of oil out of the little hole

[all2ofme]

Originally Posted by Randman

It's been covered and mentioned before.

Golly, what an insight.

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by all2ofme

Golly, what an insight.

It is insight. The insight is, "Hey, let's try the search key!"

[Bobby]

Originally Posted by all2ofme

Golly, what an insight.

Are you talking about my car?

[jdogg99]

Don't know if this was covered in another thread or not, but hard drives are NOT hermetically sealed. The head relies on air to "fly" above the surface of the media. Lower air pressure means a change in those flying dynamics, and very likely a head crash.

[tooki]

Exactly. Hard drives are "sealed" in that the "breather" holes are filtered very carefully, but hard drives definitely are at ambient pressure inside.

Special sealed and pressurized hard disks supposedly exist for low-pressure and vacuum environments, but I can only guess that they're sold directly to military contractors and aviation manufacturers, because I've never seen one for sale.

tooki