Uses for an old iPod?

[robnjiPod]

I have a 10g - 2nd Generation iPod. I am contemplating buying the 60g Video iPod.

Can anyone tell me what they are doing with there old iPods?

I have a Powerbook and iBook at home on a wireless (airport) network with both an Airport base station as my internet and an Express as my print server.

I was wondering if my old iPod could be used as a network disk to store all our photos to be accesses by both me and my wife?

Thanks for any help!

[ThreeDee]

Yeah, you can do that. You need to reformat it in Disk Utility as Mac OS Extended (Journling is preferred). Hook it up to your computer and turn on File Sharing. You can access it by going to the Go menu in Finder, select Network, find your computer, enter name/psw, select the iPod.

As a network disk (without being connected to a mac), i'm not sure how to do that.

[styrafome]

If it had a USB port, there would be adapters like this one (http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=352) to turn it into a network disk, but since it's probably Firewire, I'm not sure but you could look around to see if anybody has a similar adapter for Firewire.

[jeffo]

use it for a back up disk. I mean to do your backups to and then unhook it and leave it on the shelf until your next backup cycle. that way with it disconnected you dont have to worry about accidentally deleting files from it or power surges damaging it, or if there ever is a virus, it would not touch it.

and if you don't have a backup plan implemented, i think this is your only option since routine backups should be very important.

[nkuvu]

As far as I know, the use of an iPod as an external drive isn't a good idea for frequent use. The iPod wasn't really designed for prolonged use of the hard drive, it just spins up long enough to fill the cache with music. So I would guess that the hard drive would wear out more quickly than a "real" external hard drive.

Of course this is all vague information from my murky memory, so take this note with a grain of salt.

[robnjiPod]

use it for a back up disk. I mean to do your backups to and then unhook it and leave it on the shelf until your next backup cycle. that way with it disconnected you dont have to worry about accidentally deleting files from it or power surges damaging it, or if there ever is a virus, it would not touch it.

and if you don't have a backup plan implemented, i think this is your only option since routine backups should be very important.


Jeffo,
Can you Back-Up 2 computers onto 1 iPod (10g)??

Thanks for the help!

[ThreeDee]

Jeffo,
Can you Back-Up 2 computers onto 1 iPod (10g)??

Thanks for the help!

It depends on how much stuff is on the computer. About 3 fresh 10.3 installs could fit on a 10gb, but if you have about 3 to 4 GB of extra stuff, only 1 computer could fit, unless you trim some of the excess stuff you don't need.

[Lanny]

Buy a new battery for it from Sonnet Tech, and continue to use it as an iPod.

[jeffo]

Jeffo,
Can you Back-Up 2 computers onto 1 iPod (10g)??

Thanks for the help!


I personally cannot, no. My routine backups consist of about 80gig of data files and i do not back up my OS. And this is also not backing up my almost 500 gig of music and movies. It would be alot of work, but if those drives go down i can always rerip them from my CDs and DVDs since i own them legally.

However, my brother does have less then 10 gig of data that he backs up. All of his data is text files for webpages and things like that so they don't take nearly as much room as all my pictures and videos projects and filemaker databases and so on.

[w8ing4intelmacs]

You could always sell it on eBay to subsidize the cost of your new iPod.

[K1W1]

Wire it into your car and do away with the CD stacker.