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The Placid Casual · Jan 16, 2002, 08:49 AM

Toshiba 20gig ipod drives...

I just read the above link, and wondered whether it would be possible to put one of these drives in the iPod as it currently stands?

I know nothing about Mac modification etc but a 20gig iPod would be perfect for me as I have about 15 gig s of MP3s, and I don't want to wait for Apple to sort it out in probably 6 months time...

The article mentions that Apple haven't formally acknowledged that Toshiba supply the HD for the iPod...I was wondering if this could be because it may be really easy to change for the higher gig spec?...

Any advice woulod be greatly appreciated..

Cheers

marc

oeyvind · Jan 16, 2002, 09:30 AM

It should fit... thus why not...^^

itomato · Jan 16, 2002, 09:31 AM

There are 2 things I can think of that would possibly make a 20G drive not work.

Formatting the drive for use, (I have no idea whether the iPod ROM contains any code to do this.) and the firmware of the iPod recognizing a drive of that size.

Pixo is the company that designed the OS that the iPod uses. There's an evaluation download that runs on Windows boxen that might let you play around with the existing disk and modify a partition table (or equivalent) for use with a larger drive. It might also lend insight into iPod firmware hacks (longshot). I don't have an iPod, never will, and I also haven't played around with Pixo OS, so take all this stuff w/ a grain of salt. I may not know WTF I'm talking about!

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: itomato ]

Jansar · Jan 16, 2002, 09:36 AM

What's the point? I mean, seriously, how much music do you expect to get?

The Placid Casual · Jan 16, 2002, 09:40 AM

Originally posted by itomato:
There are 2 things I can think of that would possibly make a 20G drive not work.

Formatting the drive for use, (I have no idea whether the iPod ROM contains any code to do this.) and the firmware of the iPod recognizing a drive of that size.

Cheers,

I thought that there may be a few firmware problems involved...I guess I'll just have to wait for Apple, or someone braver than myself to give it a go!

Marc

The Placid Casual · Jan 16, 2002, 09:49 AM

Originally posted by Jansar:
What's the point? I mean, seriously, how much music do you expect to get?

I love music, simple as that. I have 600+ cds, countless live recordings etc I also play in a blues band, and have aload of friends who Dj etc, so I'm recomended stuff all the time, be it friends stuff or cds...

Also not all my Mp3s are your standard 3 min long pop songs...I love the Grateful Dead and have *loads* of their gigs often 2 hours+ per set, and concequently countless mb in size, also mixes and remixes given to me by friends...

I agree, I'm the exception, and most people would be happy with 5 MB, but myself and many others may...20Mb would be just about perfect...

And as for how many songs/music I get in future, the total is still rising at an alarming rate...

Marc

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: Marc2211 ]

Richard Clark · Jan 16, 2002, 11:31 AM

Originally posted by Jansar:
What's the point? I mean, seriously, how much music do you expect to get?

The point for some is that if the room is given they'll use it up.

But for me I'm looking at a larger drive in the iPod as a tool. After all it is a firewire drive which can hold data as well as music. A large drive would really kick butt for me taking things back and forth from the office to home and back again. Even now 5 GB is nothing to sneeze at. I believe that the iPod is currently the smallest external FireWire drive out there.

It's all going to come down to bang for your buck. If Apple offers a 10 GB iPod for say $300.00 and a 20 GB for $400.00 I'd say go for it!

lgerbarg · Jan 17, 2002, 07:27 PM

Originally posted by oeyvind:
It should fit... thus why not...^^

No, it does not fit. Its 8mm high, the drive in the iPod is only 5mm.

Louis

Jansar · Jan 17, 2002, 07:49 PM

Hmm, well I guess there are people out there with an insane amount of CDs, so yeah, I guess it wouldn't bee such a bad idea anyway. I mean, 20 GB played from start to finish would outlast a week.

danbrew · Jan 17, 2002, 09:32 PM

Yes... but what you're forgetting is battery life. I have about 1234 (really) songs in my stock iPod. Battery life is about 10 hours of play time - give or take. Figure four minutes per song, that equals 4936 minutes, or about 82 hours of music. 8 full charges.

Assuming that you would listen to 1/8 of your music, charge, listen to another 1/8, charge, etc., etc., and you're still at a 5 gig drive.

Dang, figure you're talking a 20gig drive. Figure 320 hours of music - that, btw, is almost two full weeks of non-stop music. Listen to 1/32 your collection, charge, listen to another 1/32, charge, etc., etc. Wow. I just don't see that happening.

If we're talking about using the 20gig iPod for portable storage, then I'm all for it. From a music perspective however, I suspect it ain't worth it.

fwiw - danbrew

zac4mac · Jan 18, 2002, 07:51 AM

I agree on size - 20 GB is superfluous.
5GB gives a pretty fair volume for a variety of music to get thru the day on, IMO.
An extra 5GB would be useful to me for data and overflo/new music.
The 20GB drive should fit if you remove one of the layers on the rubber pads between the HD and the MoBo(there are 4 pads, 2 layers thick)
The 10 GB should be a direct replacement. Pop the back off, swap drives, put the back on.

Arnold Schwarzenegger · Jan 18, 2002, 01:14 PM

Ven ze iPod is used for more than music, it needs more space.

Stoopid · Jan 18, 2002, 02:17 PM

Originally posted by Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Ven ze iPod is used for more than music, it needs more space.

True. Think about iPod 2007 ads...
"1,000 movies. In your pocket."

Arnold Schwarzenegger · Jan 18, 2002, 03:36 PM

Then ah can watch ze Terminator moofies on my iPod

Package · Jan 18, 2002, 03:49 PM

Originally posted by danbrew:
Yes... but what you're forgetting is battery life. I have about 1234 (really) songs in my stock iPod. Battery life is about 10 hours of play time - give or take. Figure four minutes per song, that equals 4936 minutes, or about 82 hours of music. 8 full charges.

Assuming that you would listen to 1/8 of your music, charge, listen to another 1/8, charge, etc., etc., and you're still at a 5 gig drive.

Dang, figure you're talking a 20gig drive. Figure 320 hours of music - that, btw, is almost two full weeks of non-stop music. Listen to 1/32 your collection, charge, listen to another 1/32, charge, etc., etc. Wow. I just don't see that happening.

If we're talking about using the 20gig iPod for portable storage, then I'm all for it. From a music perspective however, I suspect it ain't worth it.

fwiw - danbrew

I'm having trouble grasping your point...I have about 850 songs on my iPod, which is about a third (actually a touch less) of my iTunes library. I tend to put whole albums on my iPod, and several albums from particular artists. So browsing through my artists listing, it's only a couple dozen at most. When I get tired of those and want to swap out, I've got to go back to iTunes and rearrange. With a 20 gig drive, I'd have everything at my fingertips, all the time. *That*, to me, is the beauty of a larger capacity, when we're talking about music. So in that sense, I don't really get the connection you're making between capacity and battery life. I'd still have to charge it once a week or so like I do now, but I'd have three times the music to choose from on my commute. Sounds like a great idea to me!

I'm looking forward to hearing about the first brave soul to try the drive swap sometime in the near future...

Package

Arnold Schwarzenegger · Jan 18, 2002, 04:16 PM

Ah would like to hef full albums on ze iPod, but ah find it more convenient to hef ze good songs from ze albums to save space.

CMYKid · Jan 22, 2002, 03:05 PM

dont forget...if you happen to have songs that are significantly longer than average you'll be looking at getting roughly a third of your battery life due to the difference in buffering. this has been discussed fairly extensively elsewhere in these fora....

:ryan

vvedge · Jan 22, 2002, 09:05 PM

How about DV on an iPod?

Man... with 20 gigs, I can have 5 gigs of music, and have the otgher 15 gigs for running DV off of.. that's an HOUR. I'm sure for a lot of people, 20 gigs of super small storage would be a godsend...

dwoo · Jan 22, 2002, 11:47 PM

I was told that the iPod uses a PC Card HD instead of regular 2.5" notebook HD and I think that the largest PC Card HD you can buy now is 5G from Toshiba.

CheesePuff · Jan 23, 2002, 05:36 PM

No, it uses a 1.8" Hard Drive. Their was an anouncement from Toshiba a couple of days ago of them announcing 20 GB 1.8" hard drives, so yes its possible.

Jansar · Jan 23, 2002, 05:42 PM

Originally posted by vvedge:
How about DV on an iPod?

Man... with 20 gigs, I can have 5 gigs of music, and have the other 15 gigs for running DV off of.. that's an HOUR. I'm sure for a lot of people, 20 gigs of super small storage would be a godsend...

Too bad that you'll find it hard to watch DV movies on an iPod screen. However, I know that sometime in the future, we'll be trading movie files instead of music files, and we'll be storing movies on an iPod.

*And then I woke up*

brianosaurus · Jan 27, 2002, 01:47 PM

I think the 20G announced the other day is the same drive that is used in the PC-Card hard drives.

But as mentioned, the 20G is thicker than the 5G, so won't fit so well in the iPod. It might fit if you took out the battery, but then that's just stupid

As for space issues, I'd love to have 20G in there. I know i can't listen to it all on one charge, but the current interface for loading a 5G subset of my mp3's is a major pain in the ass.

I wonder if it would be possible to make a randomizer applescript that automatically creates a few playlists for syncing to the ipod every time i plug it in, maybe based on some criteria... like one punk playlist, one rock, one new stuff (ie. CD's I've recently ripped)

scadboy · Jan 27, 2002, 11:20 PM

The extra 3MM of depth isn't the only hurdle keeping tinkerers from upping their iPod's hard drive to 20GB, the 10GB and 20GB drives Toshiba just announced are currently retailing in Japan for 70,000 and 80,000 yen, respectively. To put this in perspective, Apple sells the iPod in Japan for about 47,000 yen. I.E., these drives alone cost about twice what a whole iPod does. So, maybe this'll become practical in about six months to a year...

As far as the extra depth goes, just how hard would it be to add that extra 3MM, it could probably be achieved by putting a 3MM washer of some sort into the gap between the metal housing and plastic frame. I'm sure all Apple will have to do when they inevitably move up to the bigger drives is make the metal housing 3mm deeper. It really does look like they designed the iPod with this in mind.

ciao,
michael

brianosaurus · Jan 29, 2002, 02:22 PM

Washer?

Nah... just wrap some duct tape around the edges.

Actually, I'll bet white vinyl tape would fit it nicely.

- b

cejones · Jan 30, 2002, 12:40 PM

Isn't a standard PCMCIA card 5 mm in thickness? I thought all these Toshiba drives were housed in standard PCMCIA housings... If so, then it should fit with no problems... where do we see that the new drives are 8mm?