Posted a new video – demonstrating the complete restore and sync of a 1Tb 7.5g iPod Classic.
I have done this many many times now with zero problems, so I thought this time I would make a video.
Syncing is done using iTunes 11, importantly I used the Apple Dual Firewire/USB Docking Lead, and the Apple 12V Firewire charger.
The firewire can supply enough power to the iPod while syncing that you do not have to worry about Power Loss Corruption issues which can occur while syncing mSata drive based iPods. The iPod USB Charge circuit cannot supply enough power to the mSata during syncing to stop the battery drain issues.
Equipment
- iPod Classic (7.5g 160Gb Model PC297LL)
- iFlash-Sata
- Samsung 840EVO 1Tb mSata
- Apple 12V Firewire Charger
- Apple Dual Firewire/USB Docking Lead
Stats
Tracks Sync’d: 49995 Tracks
Data Sync’d: 907Gb Transfered
Time Taken: Restore to Sync to Eject approx. 11 hours
Click on video settings to select the 1080p HD version.
How does one tell it a logic unit is 6th or 7th Generation. Both have the same part number of 820-2437-A. I have a working 1TB unit with that number. I also have a unit with the same number and I believe a 6th G yields a red X if I connect the iFlash to it. I see that sellers list the same number for both 6th and 7th G units, but I know they are different.
@mark the 6th gen motherboard is 820-2168-a. Another way to tell is the battery clip on all 6th gen is brown. The 7th gen is black. 6th gen will install a 1tb drive but it will only give you 128gb unless you use rockbox.
@tarkan Hello I am having the same red x problem using a 1tb with a different Ipod now. I am using the msata iflash with a samsung 850 evo 1tb drive. Smart test is good, and the drive test was good. After clipping in the battery sometimes I get the “restore Ipod” screen, but 98% of the time I get the red x. Last time I had the problem I was using the third party 3000mah battery which you said have problems because they aren’t reliable. With that in mind I tried with the stock battery and same problem. I changed the drive cable and no change there. I tried one of the prototype drive cables and no change there. I tried a different msata drive no change. I tried a 256gb samsung pm851 msata and it restored fine. Not sure why the 1tb 850 evo drives are so temperamental.
@Ryan – our reports and experience is totally opposite to yours, so far the 850EVO 1Tb has been flawless and performs much much better than the 840EVO. I have not experienced a single Power Loss Mode with our test unit, and that is abused quite a bit.
Your problems could be just the iPod itself, some iPods either due to faults or component variations cannot supply the required power. Maybe the ZIF connector on the iPod is too worn and the power connection is not so good. It could be several things combining to cause the issue you have.
@tarkan I am upgrading a 7th gen 160gb with an iflash sata and a samsung 850 evo 1tb msata drive. I keep getting the red x. I have tried two different iflash sata. They are the 2017 versions that work with the 850 evo msata drives. I have also tested the drive and everything is fine there. Any ideas?
@Ryan – Battery and HDD Ribbon would be good places to start. While harder to enter than the 840EVO, the 850EVO do have a Power Loss Mode – so running a surface scan via a mSata-Sata enclosure, and proper power down sequence will clear it. They actually have the Power Loss Mode logged in the SMART data table ( 235 – POR Recovery Count ), you can see if that has been occurring.
@tarkan I switched out the ribbon and still got the red x. The battery I am trying to put in is a high capacity 3000mAh battery. I tried 5 different high capacity batteries and got the red x with all of them. Then I put back in the original stock battery and I got the restore screen. Then I tried the high capacity batteries in a different 7th gen 160gb and they all worked. Any ideas? Thanks again.
@Ryan – Yes, Internal Resistance – all them high capacity batteries have very high IR (read poor quality battery!), and the voltage of them sag quite a bit under load. The IR tends to get worse with lower charge, so make sure they are fully charged up, and see if that allows it to boot up the 1Tb.
Hi Guys,
I just upgraded my iPod with a Samsung SSD 840 512 GB. The sync went without a hitch but I tried to listen to the music via headphones and the quality was miserable. Did I damage some components during the opening procedure?
I look forward to hearing from you!
@Lebowski – You probably knocked or pulled on the headphone ribbon – try reseating it.
Just went through the upgrade with a 256GB mSATA (EVO850) and I have a few observations: Trying to format the SSD with the iFlash installed in the iPod doesn’t seem to work very well. I used an external enclosure and it formatted perfectly. Then I installed it and factory reset the iPod. Also, the use of the combo Firewire charger and USB was a great idea. I was able to leave the battery disconnected and used the Firewire during the sync. Never had a problem with power loss or overheating. The only other complication was the “enable disk use” on the iPod. I had may problems with this checked, so I left everything unchecked and it synced without any issues. The 18,000 tracks I have synced in about an hour and a half as opposed to the 8-10 hours for the old HDD. The only down side so far is the pause does not work (although play does) and I’m not sure (yet) the sound quality is the same as the original iPod hardware. Overall I’m happy to have my iPod Classic back, hopefully for a long, long, time!
@Tarkan I’m curious as to what changed on the new iFlash-SATA adapter that now makes it work on with the 850 EVO 1TB. The 850’s (3D NAND) are much better drives than the 840’s.
@rubeN – The main difference is a soft-start function to handle the surge/start up power required by the 850EVO chipset which the iPod struggles with.
@tarkan I have seen new note added to the Msata section for drives that work with the iflash sata. Under the Samsung 850 evo 250gb, 500gb, 1tb it now says “These only work with iFlash-Sata v7 (sold since Oct 2016)”. It used to say that the 850 evo 1tb wouldn’t work. I want to double check and clarify that the new version of iflash msata drives will now work with the 1tb 850 evo? Please let me know as I wanted to be sure it now works before buying one. Thanks.
@Ryan – Yes we have finished our testing with the 1Tb 850EVO with the latest version of the iFlash-Sata v7, with no problems. Later on this year I will be re-running the power consumption test with the 850EVO 1TB replacing the 840EVO.
It definately runs much cooler while syncing compared to the 840EVO, so I expect that to also feed in to longer runtimes.
Mark, you may have hit the track limit. Are you using iTunes or a 3rd party program like Rockbox? If using iTunes I would assume you hit the track limit. I know this sucks but delete 5k-10k tracks and see if that makes a difference.
I built my unit using parts. However the screen just goes white (or grey). The logic boatd is a 7G I once had working with a 1TB. The screen, I was told by the vendor, is 7G. What went wrong?
Bare with me a bit. What is the minimum setup to get a beep in Win10. If I connect a logic board without a screen to WIN10 that used to work fine, will it be recognized as a non-functioning ipod?
Am I correct that for a 7G Classic, the song limit of ~ 50,000 is set in stone? So realistically it’s not necessary to install more than a 500GB drive as much of a 1TB drive would never be used? (for 49995 tracks, 907 GB above, that comes to 18.1 MB per track.)
@ Robert – It is not set in stone, it all depends on the library itself and the amount of meta-data within the iTunes database, the working range we have seen is around 40,000 to 65,000 tracks. 1Tb makes more sense for people who have very high bitrate or lossless files – ~4 minute lossless ALAC can easily exceed 30MB filesize.
I’ve been messing around with a 500gb and yes there seems to be a limit driven by songs/ library file size. I’m sitting on c65k tunes, c 370gb storage used and a library file of 108MB.
At that level, it’s on the edge of breaking down, e.g. it crashes when you shuffle from the entire library, but not from a smaller sub-playlist/ genre/ artist etc.
Going above that, e.g. to 470 gb storage used, it pretty much crashes and needs a hard reboot the whole time, and may need total rebuild as well.
Hope this helps
M
Hello, I’ve got a problem with an ipod 5G 30GB updated with iflash card 256GB (Patriot LX ).
When I synchronise more than 210GB of songs by itunes , Ipod shutdown and don’t restart. Ipod remains blocked on Apple and reset don’t work.I openned Ipod, formatted Iflash card, I assembled the iPod and synchronized again 210 GB of songs, and the problem is comming back. I suppose it was because the limite of 20000 songs has been reached.
What do you think about this problem ?
@Ehret – Yes if the iPod sits on the lit Apple logo on boot up then it is due to exceeding the database limit for you iPod (which being an 30Gb model can be anywhere from 15000 tracks up!).
You do not have to format the iPod if that happens – you can actually reset and quickly enter diskmode, and then when you connect to the computer, iTunes will work with the iPod normally, where you can remove tracks, etc. Then eject and try again.
Are the drives Samsung 840 EVO’s?
RubeN, Two are Samsung EVO 840 and one is a Samsung PM851
@Ron
Kind of weird that all 3 of them are doing the same thing.
I agree, RubeN. And that is what makes me believe either I am doing something wrong or AOMEI isn’t doing the trick.
Hi, Tarkan and all,
Ran into a problem I can’t get out of thus far. I have three (3) different 1TB Samsung mSatas, and all of a sudden all 3 have given me the infamous “Red X”, even though they had been working before. I have re-formatted to Fat32 and performed a few surface scans through AOMEI and mSata to Sata adapter, but can’t get rid of the problem. I put a 512 mSata back in the iPod and that works fine. I have also used the 1TB mSata’s on a external USB drive case and the computer has no problem reading / writing. Any suggestions? I really want to get my Terapods going again. Have been at this for a week now with no success. Would appreciate any and advice.
@Ron – The most critical steps I find with the Samsung 1Tb is a) surface scan for at least 200Gb, b) make sure you shutdown the computer before removing the mSata drive from the mSata-Sata enclosure (this assumes that the computer power supply is powering up the mSata drive). Powering down sequence is most important to get them out of the Power Loss Mode.
Also make sure that the iPod battery is fully charged before installing and powering up.
Thanks for the response, Tarkan. That is exactly what I have been doing. However, I can’t get the EVOs to switch back. Would if be beneficial if I wrote some data to the mSata prior to the AOMEI tasks, in order to make the drives work a bit?
I tried putting into disk mode, it goes into disk mode and the computer can read and see the ipod, but iTunes acts like it isn’t connected.
You said if you have the apple logo screen after syncing files, that you can go into disk mode and remove songs through iTunes until it comes out of the apple logo. I seem to remember iTunes telling me I had to restore when I was in disk mode. Maybe I am remembering wrong. Can you explain the process to me, so I don’t have to restore and re- sync my whole iTunes library again. I’m suspecting my database limit is 40,000 songs, because when I synced 41,000 I got the apple logo, but I am at 35,000 and change right now and it is working fine. I want to test the limit, but am dreading re-syncing everything again. Thanks.
@Daniel – To enter diskmode when the iPod is frozen on the Apple Logo – you need disconnect from the computer, Reset (hold down Menu+Select) then very quickly hold down Play+Select this should enter diskmode – after which connect to the computer, and iTunes should be able to read the iPod ok.
What is the make up of your library? is every track got lots of metadata (e.g. lyrics/tags/etc) ? 40K seems quite low, most peoples libraries seem ok up to 50K, and quite a few number are happy with around 53K to 55K.
The iPod model I have is MC297C.
What battery is needed to fit 1Tb into a MC927 ipod? is it ok to use the original battery?
@Jspenaranda – Yes of course, however the original slim battery will not give you much runtime when used with the 1Tb!!
How did you get the ipod to function with the 49000 tracks? Mine crashes every single time I try and sync my entire itunes, which is like 41000. It freezes and goes to the apple logo and won’t work until I restore it. From what I have seen online, the ipod’s database file will only support a certain amount of tracks and it will not function correctly over that amount. Is there a fix out there to overcome this database limit?
@Daniel – which model iPod are you using? Also if you exceed the database limits with the iPod just sitting at the lit Apple logo, you can reset & enter diskmode, once connected to the computer, iTunes will work with the iPod as normal and you can remove tracks using iTunes until the iPod will boot – there is no need to restore the iPod.