ipod durability v flash mp3 plays

[Graham Brooker]

I am thinking in buying an ipod for my son, but am concerned about a small
portable device having a hard drive.

Has anyone got any experience of the durability of this device and its
ability NOT to skip when reading the hard drive, especially if it gets
jolted during movement. I would be interested in an engineer's point of
view about the benefits the extra features this product offers when compared
with the reliability of a simpler, cheaper, flash memory type mp3 player
with no moving parts.

Any comments appreciated.

Thanks

Graham Brooker

 

[Roger Hamlett]

I am thinking in buying an ipod for my son, but am concerned about a small
portable device having a hard drive.

Has anyone got any experience of the durability of this device and its
ability NOT to skip when reading the hard drive, especially if it gets
jolted during movement. I would be interested in an engineer's point of
view about the benefits the extra features this product offers when compared
with the reliability of a simpler, cheaper, flash memory type mp3 player
with no moving parts.

Any comments appreciated.

Thanks

Graham Brooker

The problem time with micro style hard drives, is during the speed up/slow
down phase, when on normal hard drives, the bearings do not allways support
the drive shaft as well as when the drive is at full speed, and the air
'cushion' is not yet fully established. Designs for portable applications,
use different main bearings (which have the 'downside' of a shorter life),
and systems to ensure the head is off the surface when the drive powers
down. If you have ever used one of the old Hoover vacuum cleaners, which
floated on a cushion of air, and tried to push it down onto the ground, you
will get an idea of just how much force a small air pressure can produce.
The heads are very light indeed, and the survival forces are often higher
than the components round the drive...
On cameras, micro hard drives (in the form of the IBM/Hitachi Microdrive),
have been around for a long time. There were a lot of failures with early
versions, but the modern units have proven very good indeed. They have the
big advantage of price (4GB of flash memory, costs about 4* the price of a
4GB Microdrive), and are _faster_, than flash memory on write cycles.
The commonest cause of failures on the Microdrive, is the user 'squeezing'
the faces of the drive when trying to push the card into/pull it out of, a
tight CF slot. This obviously doesn't apply in the Ipod system.
Any mp3 player that is cheaper, using flash, just won't have anywhere near
the storage capacity of the HD based units.

Best Wishes

 

[Tim Auton]

I am thinking in buying an ipod for my son, but am concerned about a small
portable device having a hard drive.

Has anyone got any experience of the durability of this device and its
ability NOT to skip when reading the hard drive, especially if it gets
jolted during movement. I would be interested in an engineer's point of
view about the benefits the extra features this product offers when compared
with the reliability of a simpler, cheaper, flash memory type mp3 player
with no moving parts.

Skipping won't be a problem, the iPod has substantial memory (32MB)
and loads songs into that then spins down the drive to save power and
to avoid skipping if the drive is disturbed.


Tim

 

[Ian Stirling]

The problem time with micro style hard drives, is during the speed up/slow
down phase, when on normal hard drives, the bearings do not allways support
the drive shaft as well as when the drive is at full speed, and the air
'cushion' is not yet fully established. Designs for portable applications,
use different main bearings (which have the 'downside' of a shorter life),
and systems to ensure the head is off the surface when the drive powers
down. If you have ever used one of the old Hoover vacuum cleaners, which

For example, the IBM/hitachi travelstar line moves the heads off the
platter when the drive is about to spin down.

 

[ånønÿmøu§]

I am thinking in buying an ipod for my son, but am concerned about a small
portable device having a hard drive.
Has anyone got any experience of the durability of this device and its
ability NOT to skip when reading the hard drive, especially if it gets
jolted during movement. I would be interested in an engineer's point of
view about the benefits the extra features this product offers when compared
with the reliability of a simpler, cheaper, flash memory type mp3 player
with no moving parts.

I love the size of the iPods. But, any HDD will not hold up to being dropped
or even swung around. I would go with something like this for my kid, its allot
harder to break:
http://www.lexarmedia.com/jumpdrive/index.html

For the iPod, one HDD head crash and its through. I'd get one for myself.
Oh, did I say, "I love the size!"

 

[Tim Auton]

I am thinking in buying an ipod for my son, but am concerned about a small
portable device having a hard drive.

[snip]
I love the size of the iPods. But, any HDD will not hold up to being dropped
or even swung around. I would go with something like this for my kid, its allot
harder to break:
http://www.lexarmedia.com/jumpdrive/index.html

For the iPod, one HDD head crash and its through. I'd get one for myself.
Oh, did I say, "I love the size!"

Size or capacity? It's too big physically, for me anyway. I've got an
old 64MB Sony NW-E3 I bought two years ago and it's as small as any
MP3 player I've seen since. I'd prefer two albums worth of space, but
it's still adequate for my needs. I couldn't find space in my trouser
pockets for an iPod.

Agree about hard drive durability though, I wouldn't want to drop an
iPod while it was accessing its disk.


Tim