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iPod Write Speed?

R

runbird05

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2005
Messages
207
I'll be getting my 20g 4th gen iPod from the UPS man tommorrow, and I was just wondering what type of transfer speeds I'll be looking at when I go to load it up with music. I'm hoping I'll have enough time to both pick it up and then fill it up before I have to get to class!
 
Seriously, you wont have a problem. Because it is hard drive based, it is very fast. I cannot speak for specific numbers/sec but I transfered I think 10 gigs of music to mine in under 20 minutes. Very fast indeed. That was with USB2.0 I was using, but firewire should work just as well. I use usb2.0 mainly because I keep the firewire cable hooked up to the charger base for my ipod which is next to my stereo.

Anyways, congrats on the 20 gig, I do like mine quite a lot, and I use it to transfer files back and forth also.
 
The access times sure need some work though; wonder if getting a flash-based iPod would put an end to lag city
 
Abysmal said:
The access times sure need some work though; wonder if getting a flash-based iPod would put an end to lag city
Click to expand...

Battery life reasons for the access times I would think.
iPod mini's even, with the physically smaller drives, have better access times.
 
Battery life has nothing to do with access times. It's more to do with the drive's RPM and actuator strenth. Also, in theory, a physically denser capacity on the disk should increase seek times.

You're writing continuous streams of avg 4mb music files to the hard drives... access times don't mean much in such a case. The iPod registers information for the artist, album, etc lists in its FLASH ROM, and not on the hard drive itself. Hence, it's simply writing continuous, large files. On a fresh iPod, the free space isn't even fragmented. It would make no difference. After transfering a gig, you might get an extra 3 seconds of "access lag" on the HD when compared to flash memory... Don't get hung up on complicated terms like "acces time"... it might hurt your brain.

If you're really in a hurry, use FireWire. It may have a slower rating, but it has less overhead than USB2.0, yielding usually faster times.
 
I transferred abou 3 gig's worth of music onto my mini in 10-15 minutes. I did notice a slight increase going from firewire to USB 2.0 but only about a minute extra time wise.
 
USB 1.0 takes about 3 times longer. If you don't have a newer PC, it might take a while. I transfered around 12 gigs in about 60 minutes. Its a pain in the @$$ but its only a one time thing unless you completely wipe the drive again. The only thing is, I usually stop the update mid way through to let the drive cool. $300 worth of iPod ashes is not a risk i want to take.
 
krizzle said:
Battery life has nothing to do with access times. It's more to do with the drive's RPM and actuator strenth. Also, in theory, a physically denser capacity on the disk should increase seek times.
Click to expand...

Those matter once the drive is on, correct?
The drive is almost always off when in normal use.
 
USB 2 has a higher transfer rate (480 I think), but its average, it won't always be that.
Firewire has a transfer rate of 400, but thats its sustained rate, which is why its better for larger transfers.
 
Is the firewire available for the PC or just for Mac? Is there a PCI card that you can buy? Or is that a Mac only feature.
 
DeadlyAura said:
Is the firewire available for the PC or just for Mac? Is there a PCI card that you can buy? Or is that a Mac only feature.
Click to expand...

Firewire is definitely available for PC, under a 1394 code name or something. Yes there are PCI cards you can buy.

USB 2.0 does have a higher potential transfer speed, but the USB bus just happens to be slower than firewire or (whatever)1394
 
It's all pretty slow. I know with a 1st gen ipod I only got around 3MB/s. I recently got a 60gb 5G ipod and using the USB2 interface I actually get around 7MB/2 transfer rate. I think we are all drive speed limited than interface speed limited. I use ephpod and only fire up itunes to transfer video to the 5G ipod.
 
Is firewire worth the money to upgrade solely for the purpose of transferring at a steady rate and to be used only for the iPod?
 
DeadlyAura said:
Is firewire worth the money to upgrade solely for the purpose of transferring at a steady rate and to be used only for the iPod?
Click to expand...
If you have a P4 or better system (for the purposes of comparison only, Athlon 64 = P4) then chances are you already have firewire (1394a) on your motherboard somewhere. Only el-cheapo base line boards don't come with firewire these days. They're usually on the back right above two USB ports or off to them selves.



The port squared in red is Firewire. Baring that, you can get a firewire card for cheap. Honestly though, if you don't have a firewire port, don't worry about it. USB 2.0 is close enough for government work.


Incidentally, guess where I got the picture from? :D Here's the review from the main site: http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODEx
 
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