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How to increase storage in Ipod 5.5 gen (ipod video 80GB)

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[Saint]:
You can get the MK2431GAH for $150~$180, which from memory is a 7mm 240GB 40pin ZIF.

I have a couple of iPod 5.5G devices (one in a currently non-functional disassembled state, totally unrelated to the HDD ;) ) with this drive due to a fortunate opportunity to purchase a total of 8 units (all the vendor had available at that time) at a fairly remarkable discount for that particular time period (~4 years ago) of which I kept 2 of and sold the others to pay for the ones I kept and make an additional sum of profit that was more than fair.

I have had several dozen or so more of these disks pass through my hands thereafter as well.

During a time where I was purchasing unwanted or "broken" iPod 5/5.5G devices and then selling them off as "Premium" devices. This was a gamble that worked out more often than not in my favor, where all that was needed in a lot of cases was forcing an update via the iPod Manual Restore process, or reflowing the solder on the fairly dodgy battery connectors on the mainboard these devices have.

I would furnish them with a new (or refurbished) MK2431GAH, a new 800mAh battery (at that time I had access to a manufacturer of custom cells), new front and back plates, if necessary a new hold switch (the aluminium-esque coating on the top of the hold rocker sometimes peels/flakes off), and of course Rockbox. I would even optionally on request install Rockbox on the device using the OSOS Contains Only Rockbox method which completely removes the original firmware image and even the option of dualbooting from a copy of the original firmware image from a backup on the disk (like in OSOS Contains Only Rockbox Bootloader), and makes the process of updating Rockbox thereafter convoluted, but offers a fairly significant decrease (~4s) in total boot time.

This was before the market became saturated with ten million people all doing a similar thing targeting the audiophile market...but I digress.

My point is that this is a fairly high capacity modification that is literally as simple as popping open the iPod and plopping one disk out and another disk in and is absolutely guaranteed to "Just Work" for all intents and purposes exactly as the one it replaces does, only...larger. No weird issues real or potential from varying layers of hardware compatibility, no (often badly constructed - sorry Tarkan) adapter plates, no many more additional potential points of failure being added, no need to pad the interior of the device out when you realize that the disk is a fairly major structural component and the aforementioned adapter plate and your sdcard is a lot thinner in several places and nowhere near as resilient. Just a good old fashioned retractable head mechanical platter doing what retractable head mechanical platters do.
You can even partially offset the price of the new disk $40~$50 by reselling the disk that was in the iPod originally after the fact.

Edited to add:

On the other side of the fence I have also done solid state storage solutions on a pretty fair number of iPods (iPod 4G/Color/Photo, iPod 5/5.5G, iPod 6G) , using a number of different approaches and solid state storage is definitely a very attractive solution. However, I did still want to point out that for the iPod 5/5.5G particularly, the MK2431GAH is a very attractive solution that brings with it the benefit of a higher capacity with none of the obvious downsides of some of the paths to solid state conversion.

[Saint]

cereal_killer:

--- Quote from: Frankenpod on November 19, 2015, 02:41:30 PM ---I don't  know that using an external reader works with anything above 5.0 gen, due to the non-standard disk formatting the 5.5gen and later use.
--- End quote ---

I don't know about copying files that can be read by the apple firmware, but I was thinking of only using rockbox. Once Rockbox is Installed, you take the cards out of the iPod and put the card into a card reader and fill it with music. That should work, or am I wrong? I don't know about this JBOD thing... Could that be a problem, when filling the cards with a reader and then put them back into the dual adapater?

Frankenpod:

--- Quote from: cereal_killer on November 20, 2015, 09:03:19 AM ---
--- Quote from: Frankenpod on November 19, 2015, 02:41:30 PM ---I don't  know that using an external reader works with anything above 5.0 gen, due to the non-standard disk formatting the 5.5gen and later use.
--- End quote ---

I don't know about copying files that can be read by the apple firmware, but I was thinking of only using rockbox. Once Rockbox is Installed, you take the cards out of the iPod and put the card into a card reader and fill it with music. That should work, or am I wrong? I don't know about this JBOD thing... Could that be a problem, when filling the cards with a reader and then put them back into the dual adapater?

--- End quote ---

Yeah, I mean with Rockbox (I only use Rockbox these days!).

The problem (at least with an ssd, I think it is likely to be the same with sdxc, though I'm not certain) is that in 5.5 gen and above _even with Rockbox_ Apple uses some special low-level format, that means the drive can't be accessed outside of the ipod itself.  With a 5th gen and Rockbox you can certainly take the drive out and fill it up externally, but I don't think you can do that with 5.5,6,7,7.5 gen.

Anyway, apparently there are moves underway to allow dual-booting with 7th gen, which would mean at least one can sync using OF, which is faster and more reliable than Rockbox's USB.

Frankenpod:
@Saint

I built a 240gb hd pod a couple of years ago, but those drives rather disappeared a year or so ago - first the price went through the roof, then they became very hard-to-find.
I gather Toshiba even announced a 320gb drive at one point but as far as I know it never actually appeared on the market.

[Saint]:
It most certainly is available. If someone wanted to acquire the MK2431GAH presently there's certainly nothing stopping them from doing so.

Regarding the 5/5.5G HDD, the IpodManualRestore wiki page gives a nice summary about it in the notes section.

The TL;DR version is: "sector size is kinda fucky".


[Saint]

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