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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.
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
It's only a matter of time before larger capacity cards come out. And it's only a matter of time before they become dirt cheap. Just because it isn't very practical now doesn't mean it won't be in the near future.
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...
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).
The sort of thing that will bring the price down is wide scale adoption, which your really only going to get if someone like Apple or another big company starts to use them in a shipping product.
They'll always be buying at greater scale which will get them better terms than a single buyer.
So by the time it is practical Apple likely to have the puppies in iPods anyway, and it'll still be more expensive to hack one together.
It's interesting that it has been done, but not sure it's really a great suprise.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
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?
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.
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.
The wide-scale adoption is already there. These cards are primarily used for digital cameras, and ever increasingly, digital video cameras. So demand isn't the problem.
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.
Judges 12:4-6.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
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!
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