iPod Question about 60GB iPod color hard drive

[TheGimp]

I'm the proud owner of a new 60gb iPod (latest generation) who is mainly using Apple Lossless as a codec to import my large classical and jazz CD collection. Doing some googling and searching Apple support has revealed that battery life won't be as high as rated, using this codec, as the harddrive needs to be accessed much more often.

What I'm wondering is, how much life does the iPod hard drive have in it? (no wisecrack replies, please, I know that question is of a lay phrasing).

More to the point, has anyone using this or the last generation iPod, 20GB or higher, had to replace their HD due to excessive use from large song files? If so, what was the replacement cost through Apple? Also, since I bought the 60GB model in order to have a dozen or so extra gigs of portable non-music storage, I'm interested in knowing whether anyone has had wear-related problems using the iPod this way.

thanks

please jump all over this thread as you all seem to like to do, and feel free to hijack it for a related topic.

thanks

 

[homerjward]

the 1.8" hard drives apple uses are designed to be used as actual hard drives, and several companies have laptops with those drives in them. they should be fine for a long time.

 

[steve_hill4]

I am the proud owner of the first version 60GB iPod, (bought for the same £309 as the revision b, revision b announced, prices drop, accessories still included, and with discount, even cheaper). Up until recently, I had been encoding AAC at 256kbps, now down to 192 though. You do notice a drop in battery life and you will notice it even more. My best guess, about 4-5 hours battery life without using buttons, EQ and backlight.

As for the hard drive life, hard to say. The average user should see it last 3-6 years I would assume. Some faulty ones can last less than a year, others must last longer, (although since no iPod is that old, we can't say for sure). If you are accessing it more though, I would take that down to perhaps 1-3 years, (assuming an average of perhaps 2 hours a day, every day).

Just my estimates, no solid facts back these up.

 

[TheGimp]

OK, so I guess it's like anything (stupidest expression), use it and lose it - eventually. It's nice to know that it's a "for real" hard drive, but I'll still refrain from using it with Azureus. I hate to think it could last as little as 1-2 years, even with moderately high usage, but as long as I can then replace it for less than about $150 including labor, it's no big deal to me.

Over the last week my average battery life, playing only Apple Lossless coded music with no photo viewing and with the backlight timer set to 20 seconds (goes on every time I touch the dial, etc, then shuts off 20 seconds later), has been about 6 hours. This number could be off by as much as an hour, as I've never let the battery indicator get to less than about 10% before recharging. The 60GB has a 3 hour longer rated battery life than has the 20GB model, so I guess that was one more rationalization to splurge for the 60GB...

This thing rocks, but:
-Already scuffed chrome back, and screen a little bit too
-Hate how thing pauses whenever headphones accidentally unplug
--> end up having to 1)flip hold switch to off, plug in headphones, and retsart music. Wish it wouldn't pause in the first place
-Thing should have a dedicated volume control. If the sound accidentally goes up too high and also gets into some submenu, one has no choice but to:
1)quickly navigate to where click wheel functions to adjust volume, before ears are fried
2)unplug headphones right away
3)buy an in-line volume contgrol/remote control
4)let ears get fried - grin and bear it

I also hate how shuffle mode doesn't seem to apply to a chosen playlist, but instead to the whole library. Sux to hear Beethoven OPus X. Movement Y followed by Ween's "Mutilated Lips" followed by Tcherepnin or some other...

I could just be stupid, however.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[homerjward]

I also hate how shuffle mode doesn't seem to apply to a chosen playlist, but instead to the whole library. Sux to hear Beethoven OPus X. Movement Y followed by Ween's "Mutilated Lips" followed by Tcherepnin or some other...

go into settings, set shuffle to songs then play your playlist. this works on my 3g.

 

[TheGimp]

go into settings, set shuffle to songs then play your playlist. this works on my 3g.

I just tried it, and it doesn't work on my model. After setting shuffle to songs, playing a playlist started at track 1 and incremented sequentially as usual. Shuffling songs while in that playlist (or any other) resulted in the whole library being shuffled by song. My model also has an "album" shuffle setting, but that wasn't much better.

hmm...yours must be a better model..

 

[EJBasile]

I have had 3 Hard Drive based iPods.

#1: hard drive failure after 1 day
#2: battery started to "burn up" after 8 months
#3: hard drive died after 11 months

Because of apples silly warranty I was not eligible for a new iPod after #3 broke. I stupidly went out an bought a Nano and I absolutely LOVE it. No problems what so ever.

~Eric

 

[ReanimationLP]

Tips to keep your hard disk happy :

1. Dont DROP it. Espically when it is on and seeking.
2. Dont shake it and be very gentle if it is loading a song.

If either of these happens, espically when it is working, you're screwed, as the heads will crash and scratch the platters. x_x I've seen this happen a lot firsthand at the PC user group I go to. x_x The guy who does hard drives has a bad habit of rippin em open if they dont pass the tests and collecting the magnet outta them. Hes a bit odd, but funny. lol.

 

[TheGimp]

I have had 3 Hard Drive based iPods.

#1: hard drive failure after 1 day
#2: battery started to "burn up" after 8 months
#3: hard drive died after 11 months

Because of apples silly warranty I was not eligible for a new iPod after #3 broke. I stupidly went out an bought a Nano and I absolutely LOVE it. No problems what so ever.

~Eric

WOW. I can't blame you for going flash. Within a few years, I'm sure we'll have 20gb flash-based iPod minis and whatnot, and these big-girth HD units will be real clunkers that no one except certain nerds who've hacked them for therir purposes will want.

Before my 60gb iPod the first portable digital music player I owned (and still do) was the Sony PSP, carrying 1 uncompressed CD plus a few score of MP3's around on
1GB and 256MB memory sticks. Absolutely loved it except that it was too big to fit comfortably in my pocket and not very economical. Just whet my appetite for more...

Which iPod models and generations had their hard drives crap out on you? I still have 1-2 weeks to return my iPod to compusa with no restocking fee, so I'm researching its reliability a bit before its too late.

 

[steve_hill4]

If you get a replacement iPod from apple, (i.e different serial number), apparently they don't pick up on it being a replacement and you should be able to register it for another 12 months. Not sure how true that is, but worth giving a go if you are ever in that situation.

 

[TheGimp]

Tips to keep your hard disk happy :

1. Dont DROP it. Espically when it is on and seeking.
2. Dont shake it and be very gentle if it is loading a song.

If either of these happens, espically when it is working, you're screwed, as the heads will crash and scratch the platters. x_x I've seen this happen a lot firsthand at the PC user group I go to. x_x The guy who does hard drives has a bad habit of rippin em open if they dont pass the tests and collecting the magnet outta them. Hes a bit odd, but funny. lol.

Does being very gentle include walking down the street with the iPod in one's pocket while it is loading a song?

 

[jsw]

Don't worry too much about the "be very gentle" part. Some iPods are going to fail, regardless of how they're treated, whereas others, for whatever reason, survive. My 13-month-old 4G 40GB iPod has survived all manner of drops, shakes, etc. unscathed except for surface blemishes, which were minor because it's in a skin.

At first, I treated it like an egg... only more careful. Now, I treat it like I expect to treat any other portable electronic device, and it works fine.

My only longevity advice would be to not reload the drive (i.e., load the entire drive) often, as extended periods of disk use are more likely to lead to heat-related failure. Incrementally loading it is fine! But reloading 60GB daily would probably cause an early demise....

 

[steve_hill4]

Certainly, never decide that you will completely rebuild on a regualr basis. I even leave music on there that I am not bothered about anymore as I don't want to go through frequent deleting of files too.

Has anyone else noticed though, iTunes 5.0 seems to want to update songs on iPods that have been unchanged in your library, for no reason. Or is that just mine?