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View Full Version : ipod classic, more than just a waste of GBs?



Hmarroqu
January 31st, 2008, 04:06 AM
I have bee thinking and well...I hate having external harddrives and usb flash drives...I want some opinions on getting a large ipod and using it for more than just my 500 songs and actually using it as storage too? any risks? maybe i can even load ubuntu on it and boot kinda like puppy linux on a small usb stick???? WHATYALL THINK!?!?!?

jcwmoore
January 31st, 2008, 04:16 AM
http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page

you can actually install a linux version to your ipod, and following if you follow the tutorial, I guess you could easily just make an extra big "linux partrition" and use that as file storage. I did this recently and made a 1 GB space (the space I put the linux OS in) on my ipod, although i don't plan on using it as file storage there is nothing to stop you from makeing a 20 GB (or more) space and using it for file storage or even an ubuntu OS...

DjBones
January 31st, 2008, 05:46 AM
well, while were on that topic,
you should also check out rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/), which is another thing of jukebox software. Alot of themes out there for it, which is nice..

Although to your actually question, I think that it certainly would be doable,
but the Ipods hard-drive probably doesn't spin very fast .. so I can imagine it being quite slow.
With so much space, I just back up all my document/themes/music/pictures/configuration-files/videos to the ipod..
what else are you gonna do with 30 gigs lol?

Hmarroqu
January 31st, 2008, 05:49 AM
Indeed, I guess booting off a iturd would be slow as sloths but good for backing up i 'spose

Incense
January 31st, 2008, 06:51 AM
Just for the record, IPL, and Rockbox DO NOT support the sixth gen iPod Classic, or the new Nano. 5.5 or older to rockbox your iPod. I have a 5th gen with rockbox, and I love it! The iPod works so much nicer as a mass storage device without the apple firmware, and it's so easy to add and remove music from any computer. Just drag and drop.

tgalati4
January 31st, 2008, 06:53 AM
iPod disk drives are fragile. If you have ever taken one apart, there is not much to the disk drive. The thrashing that an operating system does to a drive would turn an iPod into door stop faster than Gnome-burner makes coasters.

For simple storage of media, music, videos, pictures, etc, they are pretty fast for their size, but they are not known for their reliability, so I wouldn't even use them for backup.

If you have a firewire cord, you can put OS X on there and boot a powerbook or older mac off of it. The speed of firewire makes this a novelty, but again the life of the drives is equivalent to the batteries.

jcwmoore
January 31st, 2008, 06:55 AM
The iPod works so much nicer as a mass storage device without the apple firmware

apple firmware... i.e the iBrick... the ipod is a great piece of hardware, but i will never go back to apple after hearing about that...

Incense
January 31st, 2008, 07:08 AM
If you have a firewire cord, you can put OS X on there and boot a powerbook or older mac off of it. The speed of firewire makes this a novelty, but again the life of the drives is equivalent to the batteries.

The back of the iPod becomes hot enough to fry an egg on if you boot OSX from it.. I booted Yellow Dog (I think that's what it was) off my iPod once just to do it. It ran ok, but that heat really started to freak me out.

DjBones
January 31st, 2008, 08:47 AM
too bad apple had to go and lock the new ipods,
its been since i've checked, but I think the gtkpod people have been working on the newest ipod support, although its not very stable lol
let alone rockbox or ipl for that matter

my favorite part of rockbox isn't necessarily the interface though but how you could just drop music into a folder, and rockbox would compile it into the database without even asking.. so none of that funky encrypting that ipods do (now forcing you to use itunes unfortunately), do normal mp3 players do that too? or is that just an apple ipod thing?

Spike-X
January 31st, 2008, 11:25 AM
My son's Samsung player allows drag-and-drop.

Hmarroqu
January 31st, 2008, 06:47 PM
iPod disk drives are fragile. If you have ever taken one apart, there is not much to the disk drive. The thrashing that an operating system does to a drive would turn an iPod into door stop faster than Gnome-burner makes coasters.

Are you stating that the storage drive in the ipod would eventually just go bad from all the traffic of files ? I only know of two types of storage...the HDD that have a needle and crap and just regular cards, usbdrives and what not...I know the EEEpc has a solidstate drive so obv no needle there....but does the bigger Gig ipoods have like needles and stuff like that? Then i can imagine why it would be unreliable....In other words...I have no idea wtf the ipod drive looks like.. I figure that I would have to be weary of when I think the battery would go bad so i can take my crap from it and then replace the battery with good ol apple:(

rfruth
January 31st, 2008, 06:55 PM
I have a 1G (read old) iPod & use it for storage and as a music player, its great !

thomashauk
January 31st, 2008, 08:31 PM
As mentioned the iPod's hard drive was designed to have periods of rest, (even when using it loads a few songs onto its RAM so it can spin it down)
Moving large files or running programs from it will result in excess heat and long term damage to the drive.

rfruth
January 31st, 2008, 11:30 PM
It goes without saying(?) some iPods have no physical hard disk (thus the iPod Sport option is only available on some iPods (the ones without a hard disk))

Arkenzor
February 1st, 2008, 12:02 AM
I've been using my 30 GB 5th gen iPod as an external music storage device (meaning it was always plugged in and in use when I used my computer), using Rockbox on it because it allowed me to access all the music I had normally copied on it.

The thing is, I've had to have its hard disc changed twice during the two years since I bought it, and it's starting to act up again (I mean really act up, I recently reformatted it and got about 11 GB of useable space, I put some music back on it and a good part of it immediately got corrupted).


I hope this wouldn't have happened if I had used my iPod the way Apple would expect me tu use it (otherwise it means they really sell some total crap), but at any rate, booting a complete OS from that thing would probably have scrapped its HDD even faster. Even using it as a regular external drive probably wouldn't be a good idea, because you'd need to backup all its data elsewhere to make sure you won't simply lose it.
At least unless there has been some real progress with the hard drives of 6th gen iPods, which I strongly doubt...

Hmarroqu
February 1st, 2008, 11:24 PM
So i guess for storage purposes, big ipods are just iturrds. What about the smaller ones...? whats the biggest they go?

smartboyathome
February 1st, 2008, 11:41 PM
I would suggest if you don't care about the media function of an iPod, just go with an external HD. I would recommend a Maxtor Basics 3200, I got a 320GB one for $100 not on sale, and it runs Ubuntu great (and has been for approx. 2-3 months now).

fedex1993
February 2nd, 2008, 01:13 AM
also ipodlinux does not work on classics yet. I turned my old classic into a paper weight a couple of days ago and it voids the warnty so i dont recommend it if you want to ruin it forever