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Hacker Replaces iPod HDD With Flash Memory
Via a Wired Blog, an anonymous reader wrote with a link to a post on the Geek Technique website. There, post author Mark Hoekstra details how to replace an iPod's HDD with flash memory. It's not an inexpensive procedure, as 16 Gigs of flash memory is still a mite expensive, and the post is not a 'how-to'. Just the same, the project took painstaking work and is well worth recognizing. "I guess I can say I found ways of eliminating almost every hard drive out of almost every hard drive based iPod thereby eliminating all moving parts. The only one left is the iPod video which would only need a slightly different adapter. But next to that I've got a gut feeling that one's being upgraded to flash memory by Apple themselves any time soon."
What is the point?
I suppose its impressive from a technical point of view, but isn't the point of hacking generally to do something you couldn't already do by just selecting a different model?
I'd love to do this for my laptop. Anyone know of a ComactFlash laptop-HDD adapter?
I'm confused by the summary. It talks about how the article gives details on how to do it, but it's not a 'how to'. Er... huh? But back to topic, I think this is cool as a technical hack but a bit pointless unless for some strange reason you absolutely need the battery life that I suspect is the only gain. Then again, getting to know how to (but not 'how to') swap your HDD might come in handy when those flash-based HDDs come to the market at reasonable prices.
+Raider of the lost BBS
How long until someone does the reverse with the iPhone when it comes out? Of course, my prediction is that future models of the iPhone will do that on their own. Still. not a bad hack at all, hopefully it won't be long until flash ram fully outpaces hard drive capacity/cost.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I, personally, prefer the inverse of this hack.
Go 6 second battery life!
As impressive as it might be, its a waste of time. Lets just wait a year or two before Apple makes this standard.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Sure, I'm relatively new here, but it sure is nice to see a /. headline that I truly love. Did you notice the word 'hacker'? It was used correctly!
Hacking has always been about using technology to do something you normally couldn't do. The original hackers built the foundations on which the Web lives. The media and other public opinion sources have vilified all the good hackers by lumping them in with the crackers, script kiddies, and other generally nasty online personas.
Hackers continue to advance the state of technology, whether its writing new bits of the Linux kernel or by upgrading a typically non-user-servicable iPod. The article says it itself: Apple will eventually offer a Flash-based model. Granted, they might have done this themselves eventually, but if the populace starts modding their iPods to run Flash, it only pressures Apple to move forward. Think about the early case modders: Windows, lights, case paint other than beige....Now about 70% of cases I see on Newegg have windows and LEDs.
Whether Fox News wants to admit it or not, hackers will continue to drive innovation. Not MS, not Apple...
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
I'd be impressed except that compact flash is electrically and programatically compatible with the ATA spec *by design* so replacing an ata hard drive with compact flash requires only mating the two physical plugs.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
They have the 8gb Nano but no higher.
Less storage then a regular size iPod. More than twice the cost of two 8GB iPod nanos. Other than for the sheer sake of proving it can be done, why is this hack impressive again?
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
I had an iPod mini that was stolen a couple of years ago, and I've wanted a new one ever since. With this hack I can buy a broken one used (and cheap) and put in a couple of gigs of flash myself. Cool. I'm not looking for something that hold too much, no videos or anything. As a plus, I can upgrade it as flash prices drop. Sweet!
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
I haven't checked out dimensions or costs yet, but this would be a nice way to increase the usefulness of my 6GB iPod mini. Yes, I know I could just buy a higher capacity model, but I can't really afford it.
:-|
On second thoughts, on that last criterion, I should probably leave it alone in case I fuck it up...
"Just the same, the project took painstaking work and is well worth recognizing."
Hardly...reminds me all too much of those car magazine titles "How to Spend $10grand and turn your 89 HP Honda sedan into a 92.4 HP Honda screacher!!!"
Do you think everyone runs out and buys the newest iPod as soon as it's released? There are tons of people out there with 4GB Minis, and 10-20GB 2G and 3G iPods that this would actually be a storage upgrade for, not to mention reliability improvement and increased battery life. All of the models I mentioned have hard drive based storage, which is by far the most likely component to go bad due to it having moving parts. It also means you can't really jog with these models due to skipping. I suppose you also can't skip with one of them due to jogging. 8GB Compact Flash cards are under $75, and $16GB cards are just over $200 and dropping fast. I'd consider replacing my 10GB iPod's drive with an 8GB flash drive if I used it for jogging or wanted longer battery life (I only use it in my car).
Is this what nerds do instead of have sex with their girlfriends? No girlfriend? No problem. Trade in some of that flash memory for a store-bought girlfriend, and you still might have enough money left over to buy a new flash-based nano or shuffle....and /. : what's up with your captcha image? You might as well just ask me to guess what number that you are thinking of, because it's gonna take me hours to figure out what the heck that image is supposed to spell. Well, several seconds anyway. I'll never get those seconds back, you know?
So, I guess what you're trying to say is that... for use in a Video iPod, this flash memory HD replacement is not adequate... in space?
why would you buy an ipod video - their fucking crap. tiny screen anyone? no wide screen? buy yourself a pda with n extra battery and a mobile hdd, it'll cost a shit load less and be 10x better.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Hacking the iPod and modding other portable media players seems to be an interesting hobby for computer nomads. The Repair4Player project lists all kinds of repair, upgrade and hacking guides for portable players.
... into which can be plugged a standard USB flash disk, to serve as the MP3 player's drive?
No, no, no. It goes like this:
"She's furniture with a pulse"
They already exist! $25 for one that supports one flash card, and $30 for one that supports 2. :)
Ipods have much bigger screens to Ipod Nanos and those stop at 8Gb. Not that it would interest me Ipods are the fisher price of MP3 Players anyway, they look nice and are easy to use (you can't fault them there) but technically there are superior MP3 Players out there. I fail to see how modifying hardware you own is hacking though. He's not breaking the law by doing this, just his own warranty.
We all need to cease using the term "hacker" despite what it originally meant once upon a time long ago. The term has been successfully hijacked by the media and now is associated with evil by virtually the entire non-techie public.
I propose from now on we should always call someone who accomplishes such a technology feat as a "clever engineer" instead.
Is that piece of toast a subtle warning?
Or is it just breakfast?
http://geektechnique.org/images/1387.jpg
The point is that he is selling his adapter to people who want more battery life or skip protection out of their video iPods.
Didn't the article say that the one iPod model the guy hadn't yet managed to hack the hard drive out of was the video iPod?
Heck, didn't the Slashdot story submission say that?
Actually, the only time I can hear the HD spinning is when the iPod fills its own cache for at least another 20 minutes approximately, maximal power saving. So you can kinda forget about skipping, unless you're running while the HD spins but I've never had any problems with that actually. I have a 30gb video iPod by the way.
I know the guy says it does, but he also says that it's enabled him to remove "all moving parts". The 1st gen iPods had a mechanical scroll wheel (and is therefore impossible to remove "all moving parts"), which, combined with the fact that none of his pictures or video show a 1st gen iPod, makes me sceptical of the claim.
I refer to you and you and you and especially you .
What are you non-nerds doing on slashdot? Here's a clue: owning a computer doesn't make you a nerd. Being a dork doesn't make you a nerd; in fact, I am not a dork, believe it or not. My girlfriends (yeah I know the joke, just shut up already) don't believe I'm a nerd.
Buying bleeding edge tech most definitely doesn't make you a nerd, unless you hack the shit!
My nerd creds stem from when I was using a slide rule in the 8th grade to cheat at math; from building a ham radio reciever and guitar amplifier (I cheated, they were heathkits); to hacking transistor radios into guitar fuzzboxes (my musician friends loved me; real fuzzboxes cost hundreds but I could hack a $10 radio to sound the same). Of course, I did the first one out of sheer geekiness.
If you don't understand why someone would take something apart out of curiosity, or why someone would want to add a flash drive to an ipod, turn a transistor radio into a guitar fuzzbox, or turn a toaster into a computer case (or a computer into a toaster) you have no business at slashdot.
-mcgrew (sm62704)
Just wanted to say, based on personal experience, that Mark is a very cool guy. :)
A true hacker in the positive sense of the word!
I'd love to mod my mini with a little door on the back that lets me switch out CF cards.
Ever since the original Diamond Rio came out, I've wanted an MP3 player that lets me put an album on a chip... even better, to have all of one artist's albums on a chip. 1GB cards are much cheaper than 16GB cards!
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?co
I only spent a few minutes looking around so there may be others. Still, you have to admire anyone willing to solder 88 tiny wires.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a hardware hack; ergo, the guy is a hardware hacker. Get off your high horse.