Ipod as bootable recording hard drive?

[Jakedempsey]

I use the Mackie Spike/Traktion setup to record with a mac. My question is this: Can I use my 20GB ipod as a portable firewire hard drive to store, and call up recording sessions? I know it can be done, but I've heard of folks burning up there Ipod's hard drives by running full on OSs', and such on them.

So, will I kill my ipod by running it as a bootable drive for 1gb+- files, or is it not a huge deal? Thanks in advance.

[Wrong Robot]

Hard Drive mp3 players were never made to do this(dinky hard drive packed in super tight space). constantly running the drive will burn it out, you'd be much better off getting a 40-80 GB external firewire drive. The iPod drive(and pretty much all HD players drives) are pretty slow anyway, you would never want to boot off them to do serious audio work.

Of course, you can use it to transport files, which is a great use for sure. but I would steer clear of trying to boot from it.

[Rav]

The IPod drives are Toshiba IBA microdrives. Some of the newer ultra tablet type PC's use them and they are very capable drives. The transfer rate and seek time is comparable to most laptop type low power consumption hard drives.

If you have a device that supports booting firewire it will work fine.

-Rav

[jeff schmidt]

I don't think running an OS off an ipod is dangerous - but you really shouldn't use it as an AUDIO DRIVE for Multitrack Digital recording and editing. As Wrong Robot said - those drives weren't meant for that kind of heavy duty use. There are stories of meltdowns in that kind of use.

Why risk it. HD's are so cheap.