Posted a couple of videos on the iFlash-Dual, one quick overview of the board and the second is an installation video using my new Kingston 512Gb and the PNY 256Gb cards.
iFlash-Dual – uploaded some videos…
- Runtime shootout : Dual SDXC, mSata, SDXC and Original Hard Drive
- Runtime shootout 2016 : Quad, Dual, Solo, mSata vs. Original Hard Drive
114 thoughts on “iFlash-Dual – uploaded some videos…”
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I installed the iFlash-Dual today with (2) 256Gb SDXC UHS-I (U3) PNY Elite Performance. Piece of cake. Hardest part was getting the iPod open without damage. I did bend one clip tab that I had to straighten out. Total time was about 20 minutes (plus 3 or 4 hours to load it). Your instructions were perfect. Thanks. Now I can carry my entire library with me.
Just wanted to provide a quick update. Things have calmed down; the problem appears not to have been the overall library size (which I’m expected to max out around 66,000 songs — that’s the number I’ve seen), but the size of the smart playlists. I set a limit of 30,000 songs on them, and so far, no freezes or reboots. My second Classic, Segundo, has had its surgery, and I’ll be picking it up in a few days.
@Daniel – I never heard of anyone achieving 66000 tracks, I know a few people have reportedly managed around 60K by stripping the metadata out of the library using something like gnuPod. My personal library on the 768Gb iPod (as demo’d in these videos) while ok at around 55000 tracks, does cause a reset when switching between genius playlists after long periods of play – reducing the track count down to 53000 tracks stops this happening, I would think about 80% of my library is full ‘tagged’.
Well I had the iFlash for over a month now and decided today was the day to fit it to a faulty Classic 7th gen. New battery and iFlash Dual currently with 1 256GB card. Excellent. All my lossless music and room to spare. No having to pick and chose, I can take all my music with me. Also I am sure that the playtime per charge will be much longer. Fitting was straight forward – tip – take your time and put on a soft surface whilst working.
Just got a bluetooth adapter for my iFlash iPod and some bluetooth headphones. The ultimate iPod experience!
Background: I have two 7.5g iPod Classics: Primero, purchased in 2009; and Segundo, purchased the day after they announced the classic was discontinued. Primero is now Primero Prime, having had the iFlash Dual installed in January (see http://cahighways.org/wordpress/?p=11039 ) with two PNY Elite Performance 256 GB High Speed SDXC Class 10 UHS-I, U3 cards installed. Segundo is awaiting for two more memory cards to arrive to have its surgery.
Prior to the operation, Primero would occasionally reboot when traversing menus. I attributed this to age or the click wheel. Since the operation, this happens more frequently. I had a spate of issues right after installation. This happened again yesterday, with numerous freezes (all when running off a 37000+ song playlist or select a song therefrom), or reboots when moving through memos. Right now, I do not believe it to be the iFlash card or memory, as it doesn’t happen on a consistent song or transition.
My working theories are as follows: spurious signals from the click wheel due to age; spurious signals from the batteries due to age; a poor sync from iTunes creating bad pointers (as problems sometimes resolve with a resync); issues with very large playlists (problems occur more with really big playlists). I’d like to figure this out before Segundo goes under the knife to become Segundo Prime.
Daniel
@Daniel – you will also get reboots like that when the library size is close to the limits. The iPod seems to work ok, but starting a large playlist or changing genius playlists causes a reboot. To confirm try removing say 10% of the tracks, then see if the random reboots are still present.
I’m disinclined to believe it is the large library size in general, as the same iTunes library is synched to both Primero (512GB, iFlash Dual, 2009) and Segundo (160GB, Hard Disk, 2014). There have certainly been more freezes on Primero; I can’t think of a single freeze on Segundo. It could relate to the combination of smart playlists and list size, as I rarely use the 37000+ smart playlist (and things seemed to be better on full Shuffle). The one other note is that it seemed to clear after a synch, meaning it could be some sort of timing interaction creating some bad sync pointers on the iFlash card — that’s subtle enough to only be periodically problematic.
Even before installing the iFlash, there were the occasional menu-traversal reboots on the older Primero. This is why my primary suspicion is an electrical intermittent from the click wheel. What have you seen as the cause of reboots or freezes, as opposed to outright failures?
Took 12 days to get to me (Texas). Got it, installed it as the instructions said to. Works excellent! Crazy storage size, playback video and audio is flawless! Recommend this product to everyone! Setup: dual adapter, 256gb x2 sdxc cards, 7th gen ipod classic, new li-ion battery. I’m in love again with my iPod!
Just wanted to leave some feedback on the Iflash Dual. Mine is working flawlessly in a 5.5g Ipod video. It was a doddle to fit.
I know you have a list of compatible cards – I’m using a pair of 128GB Sandisk Ultra Micro SDHC cards, which work without issue. For info, they are the ones Argos stock (and can be had at bargain prices, as Argos often have them on offer). I’m now waiting for the price of larger capacity cards to come down.
Anyway, the Iflash Dual is a superb bit of kit. I’ve just been given another Ipod Video (with a dead hard drive), so another Iflash Dual will soon be mine.
Slightly off topic, but does anyone here have a view on whether a latest gen Classic offers any real advantages over the Ipod Video?
@Martin – That Argos listing is wrong it should be listed as SDXC, I initially thought Argos were selling fake SD cards as there is no such things as a 128Gb SDHC card!!! I prefer the 7g that is my personal choice – I think for me it is the music genuis features and the fact when runnning 768Gb in storage with over 45,000 tracks the faster processor of the newer models help 🙂
Thanks – Yes, they are of course SDXC cards. That’s Argos for you…
I’ll keep looking for a 7th gen Classic – my Ipod Video has already had three new batteries, a new screen, a couple of new front (and rear) casings and a scroll wheel. It’s a bit like Trigger’s broom (readers from outside the UK might need to Google that reference!).
From what I can gather, the 7th gen Classic makes it much easier to get a digital signal from the dock connector – a feature I would definitely use. Not keen on trying to solder my Video, as it will doubtless lead to much swearing (and possibly a fire).
Cheers
Just ordered one of these. Quick delivery. Quality item. Thanks.
Loaded it up with a pair of samsung microsdxc and sd adapters.
Fitted and tested in both a 5.5g and a 7g.
Works fine on the 7g, Bit too much gb for the 5.5g i suspect at 10,000 songs and 8000 photos.
I think a more modest cf adapter for the 5.5 will be next.
Hi,
I got the iFlash-dual to upgrade my ipod classic 5.5. Opened and disassembled without issues. Trying to thread the HDD ribbon under the iFlash connector after flipping up the black bar I struggled to get the ribbon to slot under the yellow bar, part of the yellow bar seems to be glued down to the underlying metal electrode. Finally a part of the yellow bar broke off 🙁
Any suggestions?
@AK – The ribbon goes in to the ZIF connector on the iFlash board, not under or between the connector – it slides in without much pressure.
Send me a picture using the contact me button, so I can see the damage.
Hi,
I have the photo showing the broken bit, but I don’t know how to send it to you. The yellow piece appeared to have been glued down to the metal connectors and broke incredibly easily. Even after that the rest of it will not allow allow the ribbon to slide under. Thanks,
AK
@AK – Send me a message via the contact button at the top of the page. You can then email me the image.
Hi, do you have any experience using the Komputerbay Professional 256 GB High Speed SDXC Class 10 UHS-I, U3 600X Flash Card. It’s about £25 cheaper than using the equivalent Kingston SDXC card. Thanks.
@Chris – no one has reported on that card, I would think it will work ok, I suggest getting it from somewhere with a good returns policy, so you can return it if it does not work.
Tarkan- It would seem this is the behavior these cards exhibit when they are dying or faulty. Here is what I am wondering: Does the iPod OS do something to these cards to accelerate their decline? Your boards are incredibly well made, but I know that generally SD cards are not meant to run operating systems, even simple, read-only ones like the iPod’s. So I am curious if the cards wear down over time because of this. What have been your observations regarding longevity in this configuration?
As always, thanks so much for your help!
@Matt – No SD card controllers handle wear levelling ok, and there is no wear on reading anyway. My experience has been that SD cards are extremely wear tolerant, I have not had a single failure of my test cards that I use here. The test 256Gb PNY & Kingston which are my main abused cards are on 9th and 11th full restore/syncs respectively so far!! and several thousand hours of continuous shuffle playtime in between!!!
I am interested in how the new 512Gb Kingston used in this video behaves, it has only completed 3 full restore/syncs and approximately 5 weeks (~840 hours) of continuous play so far. I will keep it running for the next 3 months and will fit in another 6 full restore/sync cycles to test how well it handles what in effect will be close to 5Tb of data writes.
Tarkan- Thanks so much for the reply. I wanted to wait a week with some results to get back to you. The morning after I posted my message I took the card out, and it was completely inaccessible and unrecognizable in every computer, reader and device I tried. The card must have been defective somehow, so I could not run any tests on it. In fact, if I left it connected to the computer for more than five or 10 minutes, the computer would completely freeze and reboot. I RMA’d it and got a PNY 256 instead. I used your formatting method this time, which I did not do with the Kingston. I copied all of my music to it and have put maybe 20-25 hours of listening in so far (including 11 hours in one day), and it has been flawless. No skipping, freezing or bugs of any kind.
There was no particular reason why I copied the music in segments the first time, other than just being careful. I have never had a problem with syncing or iTunes. I copied the entire 120GB to the PNY card in one go. I would say it was actually slightly faster with the PNY than the Kingston.
I was concerned that the iPod OS had corrupted the Kingston card somehow, and that eventually the same would happen to the PNY. Apparently though, the simple truth was that the Kingston was defective and all of the problems I had stemmed from that.
By the way, the 2000mAh battery is amazing! After all of the aforementioned runtime there is barely a sliver gone from the battery indicator.
Thanks so much for everything!
@Matt – You did have a very strange problem. I had a Lexar go that way, starts with strange problems, gets slow then finally start causing the computer freeze.
Dear Tarkan and the rest of the web,
I want to personally thank you, Tarkan, for manufacturing such a beautiful piece of work. I have installed the dual along with the requisite SD cards. I chose the Kingston UHS1 X3 64gb SD cards (they were just the biggest capacity and worked with my model ipod). My ipod works great now. Let it be said that I will be buying another board from you soon. I have yet to test the system with my bluetooth headphones and attachable zif dongle (kokkia bluetooth 2.0) so, only time will tell. I think it should work though.
Now for the rest of the web, here was my process:
1.) 120gb ipod classic (that would be 6th gen on this site). This particular model will only take up to 128gb of memory because of the limitations of the internal design of the 6g ipods (Thanks apple!) and this statement can be further substantiated by both older blog post on this site and by doing more research on the structure of the 6g ipods.
2.) I ordered pretty much all of the accessories (malleable metal piece, spudger, ribbon, plastic tools etc…). They were cheap, effective, and I reasoned: better to be well prepared and have all the extras than to not have the right tools.
3.) I partitioned the SD cards just the way you instructed everyone to do in a previous blog post using AOMEI (which is free for download on CNET). It took all of 5 minutes.
4.) I ordered a new battery for my ipod. I reasoned: if you are going to pry open your ipod, REPLACE THE BATTERY. It has a finite number of charges and costs little to replace.
NOTES:
Prying the ipod open was actually not that difficult with the tools that I ordered. Took about 15 minutes with steady breathing and focus.
Partitioning the SD cards took a little time to figure out because I first tried to partition the cards using windows disk utility but, that would only let me partition in NTFS. Get AOMEI and follow the online directions. FAT32 is the correct partition. My Kingston cards came exFAT right out of the box. FAT32 is just safer.
At first I thought I was going to have to go to the store to buy the foam pads to attach to the dual because I didn’t see them in the package. Actually, they got tangled in the printed directions in the package. I’ll say that again, the foam pads got tangled in the INCLUDED DIRECTIONS. You know someone cares about their work when they include all this online documentation AND directions in the package. Kudos to Tarkan once again.
I attached one foam pad on the labelled white foam pad area on the board and, because I use my ipod in the gym and it does get tossed around a bit, took the other foam pad and attached it to the front of the board right near the back end of where SD card 2 would be placed. It was just a precautionary measure to ensure that there is some shock absorption on both the front AND the back of the board.
I did have a hard time at first because I did not place my ipod FACE DOWN while taking off the back so, I ended up ripping out the audio jack cable from the ipod’s internal motherboard. It was fine, it didn’t tear or anything but REMEMBER: OPEN THE IPOD FACE DOWN.
Now, let me say that I don’t use iTunes. Perhaps I should rephrase, I used itunes to restore the ipod as per the instructions (and made sure to do so while the ipod was still relatively open so if I needed to make an adjustment, I could). When I upload music to my iPod I use floola. I’ve just never like the itunes interface at all. Best of all, the board worked with floola. Not an advertisement at all, but I was just a little concerned that I would HAVE TO use itunes.
In closing, this entire process took me about 45 minutes to complete.
Thanks again Tarkan. I will be buying another board from you after I can obtain some old ipods from my friends who just have them laying around. I would like to get a 256gb SD card ipod for my own use, so, would a 5th gen be best? Let me know if you like.
That’s all from me. If anything goes wrong, I’ll let you know. For now, everything is great.
Buy a board from this man right now.
Tarkan- You have done incredible work in your quest to take the iPod to the next level, as Apple should have done years ago. So thank you for that!
I purchased an iFlash Dual, Kingston SDA10/256GB SD card and 2000mAh battery to mod a 7th gen 160GB iPod classic. The mod went exactly as it should have, and I copied about 120GB of music in 40GB chunks. No errors or weirdness happened. It played perfectly for about 10 days, then the following behaviors occurred:
– Two times it got stuck between tracks in an on-the-go playlist. The device was not frozen and all functions worked, except it would not play music. Switching to another track would not work. I rebooted the iPod and it played normally.
– It froze again while playing an on-the-go playlist, but this time it would not reboot. I have the red X and cannot put the device into disk mode.
Do you have any ideas as to why this happened, and what I can do? My instinct says the file system became corrupted, but why? Isn’t the iPod’s OS basically read-only?
I know I could take it apart again and format the SD card manually, but I am wondering if you have encountered this behavior before, and if there are other actions I should take. Do you know if reliability is a concern I should have with this configuration?
Thanks so much for your help,
Matt
@Matt – very strange issue. Try restoring the iPod again, and then get hold of H2Testw, and let that run against the iPod drive for the whole 256Gb.
Did you have a problem with syncing? Why did you sync in 40Gb segments?
I use 256Gb Kingston SDA10 as a test card, never had an issue with it with iPod OS.
Will the I flash dual be thin enough to fit the larger 2000mah batteries?
@Ryan – All iFlash adapters will now fit with that battery.
Just Curious Why Kingston 512 Gb instead of PNY 512gb is kingston better or something?
The PNY 512Gb is a better card – Kingston is the only reasonably priced 512Gb here in Europe.
Where can I purchase the Kingston 512?
@George – Most retailers are stocking it now, from Amazon to BHPhotovideo – model is SDA10/512GB
Hi! Sorry for being off topic but I’ve tried to look on the site and found no real answer.
Just for clarification, are there any drawbacks of using a microSDXC card? I’ve looked in the compatibility list and theres only two of them. From what I find online, 128gb microSDXC cards are cheaper than full size SDXC ones. But will they perform as well when used in an adapter in a iflash dual? Will there be any conversion from the microsd in the adapter that could slow down read speeds?
Tarkan, first of all let me congratulate for your good job doing such a great iPod interface. I’ve bought one msata adapter and two iflash dual to experiment. At the end I was able to create a 1TB iPod after some issues formatting the Samsung 840 drive (from what I read it seems a common issue).
Now I’ve just used one of your iFlash Dual interface with a Kingston SDXC 256 GB on a refurbished ipod video 5G.
I have noticed that in iTunes the memory reported is 238, 82 GB while in the HD info screen (diagnostic mode) only 128 GB are reported. Is this related to the 128 GB LBA limit I heard about?
Moreover I don’t know if this refurbished motherboard has 32Kb or 64 Kb of RAM, do you know a way to check it?
Thanks and best regards,
Franco
@Franco – The 128Gb reported on the Diagnostics mode is just a display thing it has nothing to do with LBA addressing – it is nothing to worry about. To check if you have 32MB or 64MB motherboard just check the model number against my list here (iPod compatibility chart).
Tarkan you’re a star!
I wonder why I missed your web page, but that’s amazing, thanks again also to clear out my doubts about the HD Info page. Keep doing your great job!
I am using 512GB PNY and a 256GB PNY. Formatted via AMOEI process.
Don’t know if putting the cards in the order you did caused you to lose 14GB of space but I put my 512GB in the 1st slot and the 256GB in the 2nd. I have 721GB of space when said and done.
@Jon – Swapping cards will not change the total capacity. I think the difference is because Kingston is being a little naughty in that with over-provisioning the 512Gb is not really 512Gb more like 500Gb, as the formatted capacity of that card is ~468Gb, the PNY 256Gb formatted is 238Gb – Hence my total of ~705Gb.
Which 512Gb and 256Gb cards are you using? are you also HFS+ Mac formatted?