Upgrading iPod Hard Drives

A number of people have asked about upgrading iPod hard drives — what to buy, how to prepare, and how to perform the upgrade — so here are all the technical details. If you’ve never worked inside an iPod before, this is certainly an advanced tutorial, but don’t let that scare you. Working slowly and methodically, you too can upgrade your iPod and store even more music, photos, and videos.

What to Buy
Which hard drive to buy depends on your specific iPod model, so like any half-decent attempt at an upgrade, a little research will be necessary before purchasing. The main factor that will affect your decision is the height, or thickness, of both the iPod and hard drive. Since day one of the iPod launch, Toshiba has produced all the hard drives employed in the full size iPod lineup. While they currently enjoy a profitable OEM business agreement with Apple, the drives are in no way exclusive to the iPod, and they can be found in many other products, including (not surprisingly) some Toshiba laptops and (perhaps more surprisingly) Microsoft’s Zune player. To allow for some options in product development, Toshiba’s 1.8″ hard drives come in two thicknesses — the thinner has one physical storage platter inside, and the thicker has two. As technology advances, however, the capacity of each platter increases while the dimensions remain fixed. This is good news for iPod upgraders — the longer you wait, the more you can store.

Apple’s iPods are fairly easy to find a matching replacement/upgrade hard drive for, as you can generally tell which thickness drive you need just by holding the device in your hand. If your iPod was the thicker of the series when you purchased it, it takes the thicker, two-platter hard drive (examples include the higher capacity models such as 40 GB iPod and 60 GB iPod photo). The thinner models (like the 15 GB iPod and 30 GB iPod photo) take the thinner hard drives.

The new iPods with video capability are a different beast, as the drive technology and space requirements have demanded smaller hardware. With that in mind, Toshiba engineered a new connector on recent drives that is vastly smaller than the previous models. These new drives sport a Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) connector, which, unlike the older iPods, requires no pressure to connect the cable. Simply holding the hair-thin ribbon cable in place and folding down a clamp-like lock will secure all 40 pins in a staggeringly small — and fragile! — connector. The connector on the new iPods’ logic boards is now no wider than your thumbnail, and it, too is quite delicate. Such is the way of ever-shrinking consumer electronics.

Tools of a Trade and a guide here: http://www.command-tab.com/2007/03/11...ipod-hard-drives/

We accept no responsibility for the content of external sites.