Introduction
For some time many people have wanted to use my iFlash iPod CF adapter with the new generation of large format SD memory cards. SDHC and SDXC are the new generation of SD cards which are cheaper and have capacities of upto 256Gb and growing.
SDXC Installation
Installation
7g and 256Gb PNY
Installation is simple, the iFlash is first installed – then install the SD card in to your SD-CF Adapter – finally insert the whole thing in to the iFlash, ready to restore the iPod.
SDHC and SDXC which cards to get
So far all the SDHC and SDXC cards I tested worked ok, so it is looking likely that majority of the SD cards out there will work ok.
In terms of card speed, one user has reported issues playing FLACS with a Class 4 card. I would suggest you want a minimum of a Class 6 card with Class 10 the prefered option.
So far… working and tested in 5g / 6g / 7g iPods
iPod 5g with 256Gb PNY
The current compatibility list has been moved to the iFlash-Solo product page.
Hello Tarkan, just found your site and am thrilled to see this option. My model A1136 5th gen 30 GB iPod just had the hard drive die on me, and I’ve been trying to look for some type of replacement for it. I love the idea of going to an SD card based system but had a few questions for you, based off of what I have read here, and the store page. I admit I haven’t read though everything on the page since there are 612 posts so far, so I apologize if you’ve answered this already.
First: On the store page you have “5g and 5.5g (30gb, 60gb, and 80gb)” with no GB limit for iTunes like you do for other generation units, does this mean that they have no built it limitation on storage size?
Second (if there is a 128mb size): emCore states that its compatible with generations 1 though 3 of the classic model. So if there is a limit to the size on the 5th generation units, does Rockbox bypass that limitation? I looked and couldn’t find an answer on their site.
Depending on how things are looking for me I could be ordering form you very soon. Thank you very much in advance for making this product, my iPod is a huge part of me sleeping well at night (I hook it up to a small set of speakers so I can listen to music… and not my neighbors snoreing) and this could be the answer to some prayers of mine.
Thanks again,
Blue
@Blue – The iPod video’s will work with storage above 128Gb, there are however track limits as specified in my pdf list. EmCore is only designed for iPod classics (6g/7g), the iPod video’s can install Rockbox directly using the Rockbox installer.
I finally got sdxc pod working reliably, but only by buying a new card (from the same supplier).
What I can’t figure out is the old card is still reported as perfect by both a full run of H2testw and aomeii’s bad sector test, yet gives ‘bad block’ errors when used in the one remaining ipod that I haven’t closed up. Of course it could be that that ipod has problems that the ipod I’ve finally got working doesn’t – yhet _all_ the ipods gave problems with that original card to start with. Or it could be that one of the two iFlash’s I have is better than the other (dirt in the cable socket was my latest theory!). To further test the old card – cos I still want to get some use out of it – I need a 2nd sd/cf adaptor (ordered).
The whole thing is mystifying, but at least I now have one 7.5 gen working perfectly well with sdxc (and a 5th gen working with the ssd).
The most baffling thing is the amount of contradictory results I’ve had, suggesting there are multiple different sources of problems. For example, its become apparent that whenever my central heating does its thing of releasing a burst of RF interference (heard as a burst of crackling over the radio), any ipod that’s connected has a tendency to at that moment lose its connection to the PC! Is that likely to be to do with actual radio frequency noise or the electricity supply? Or just a weird coincidence?
@Pete – Glad you finally got it working, there is quite a wide variation in the signal timings between cards, the iFlash kit is designed to adjust for this, but sometimes it can be outside of what can be adjusted for!! It would be interesting to hear how you get on with your next iFlash kit and ‘bad’ card – to keep power consumption low on the SD-CF Adapter, I do allow some variation in signal timings in the adapter – so it is totally possible to have a combination of SD-CF Adapter & SDXC card which do not like each other!!!
Your central heating pump or ignition circuit is probably got a fault causing it to leak high amounts of RFI, this is probably affecting the ring main it is connected to, is it possible your computer is connected to the same ring main supply? if so it is probably this induced noise causing the USB link to fail or the computer to glitch, it is unlikely however for the iPod to be picking or being affected by the RFI (<- unless it is very close to the boiler!!)
Hi Tarkan,
I just received your iFlash Bundle (iFlash v3 + SD Adapter v7). Before buying a SD card I just wanted to make sure I am buying the right card with the right amount of gigabytes. As I own a 6g classic and I do not intend to install Rockbox on it, I understand that only 128 gb is something that itunes is working with, right? Or is it yet possible to go for a 256 gb card on a 6g ipod classic? Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Regards from Germany,
Markus
I believe certain Classic iPods will recognize up to 160 GB of the 256Gb card when using iTunes (this is the way I use it) I have a Gen 7, but I don’t know which of the earlier models will recognize more than what was then the maximum available HD for that Gen. 5, 5.5, 6 etc.
I have too much legacy invested in iTunes to change now. If at some point Apple dumps iTunes, I’ll be forced to deal with it then.
The 6th gen iPod with Apple Official Software will only see 127.7GB out of that 256GB card.
@Markus – The 6g will be limited to 128Gb – there is a full chart (pdf) on my store page, which shows iPod model numbers and any specific limitations for that model.
Hi all,
trying to buy a 256Gb SDXC UHS-I PNY card on any European resellers, but no way: it seems that is not available at the moment. I can find just the 128Gb one. Any hint about?
Thanks.
Sadly PNY are not selling the 256Gb in Europe, currently it is for sale in Asia and North America – hopefully Amazon or similiar will start to sell in Europe.
I have ipod 5th gen with video model:MA146LL using ur chip and cf to sd adapter. Just bought a SanDisk Ultra PLUS SDHS uhs-1 class 10 32gb card and it is speedy quick and working great.
I bought one for a fellow Head-Fi member and shipped it to France or or was England? Maybe you can find someone who can help you with that too.
Transcend 64 GB High Speed Class 10 300x worked perfectly after I partitioned it. Thank you so much for this! My iPod died 5 years ago because of the “Big Red X” and has been sitting in my closet since. So glad to get it back up and running. It’s honestly such a great invention. And now with a a better shock resistance “hard drive” inside – it’s totally worth all the money I spent on it.
@Jon M Curley
Sheesh, this isn’t fair! For time-being have given up on getting the 256gb sdxc to work. Been testing the offending ipods by using them with a 160gb hard-drive, and they appear to work fine in that arrangement.
Am curious what happens if you fill the card up, or at least put 250gb on it? I seem to mostly have problems when the 256 card is nearly full.
I do seem to have gotten the ssd to work, but only by getting a 60gb 5th gen to use as host (rockboxed), because of course that allows the drive to be loaded externally – and, boy, not only is that way more reliable, it also takes only about 20% of the time (and as a bonus, the 5th gen housing is far easier to open non-destructively than the 7.5th! I think I’m a convert to 5th gens!)
@Tarkan I am currently testing the 512GB Sandisk SDXC with your adapter. Can’t get it to work on the 2G Mini but am having no issues so far with the 7.5G Classic. I have 135GB loaded on it and it seems to work perfectly. I am using stock firmware.
@Jon – Thanks for letting me know, Kindly someone else has also been testing the 512Gb Sandisk – just waiting on the results of some specific tests I needed doing, and that card should be good to go on the compatiblity list!!!
@Tarkan
Yes, have now established its not due to movement in the case (at one point it did look as if the problem was the hard-drive cable being not securely inserted in the i-flash, so I thought maybe it was getting pulled out while in use, but, have now eliminated that possibility).
Eliminated a few other theories I had, and tried a different PC, but that isn’t definitive as its a linux box and so could only test with Rockbox, and the failure in that case might simply be due to Rockbox itself. And it still seems as if sometimes syncing failures go away if I reboot the PC before trying again. The problem is even with a successful sync it will spontaneously apple-icon-reboot-loop after a couple of hours of use.
Really can’t rule out that the three 7th gens I have all have subtle logic-board faults (all were originally from ipods with failed hard-drives). And the reboot-loop issue happened once when using a hard-drive in one of them. Maybe flash-media is more sensitive to logic board faults than hard-drives are?
The dilemma is I don’t want to mess with my one-and-only purchased-new, never-opened, definitely-fully-working ipod unless I’m 100% sure I can get the sdxc working with it.
Its frustrating because I really like the idea of the sdxc-based pod, particularly now I’ve belatedly realised it will fit in a slim back – seems little reason to carry on with 160gb if I could build a 256gb one and fit everything in it.
@MJ
I was using it with a thick back, but just recently tried it with a thin one (with thin battery, obviously) and it does just about fit, though it is very tight (I’m hoping with a thin back and tight fit there will be less potential movement, and that this might solve the corruption problems I’ve been having).
@Pete – the iFlash-bundle is an exact fit for the thin backs – the neoprene bumpers provide the pressure to hold it secure.
I highly doubt corruption is being caused by movement, if this is the case you really need to determine what is causing it.
The iFlash + SDCF Adapter fits no problem, I am looking at one typing this and majority of users buying my iFlash-bundle are using it in Slim back iPod Videos and Classics.
You have removed all the rubber padding used by the original HDD? Also you are using an iFlash v3 board? Generic 3rd party Zif adapters will not fit with my SD-CF Adapters.
@Tarkan Sorry for the really late reply.
My original message “I recently bought the SD Adaptor, but it doesnt seem to fit in my Slim Classic 6G (Originally 80gb). A normal CF would have.”.
Basically the enclosure doesnt fit because the SD Adaptor is too thick. The info on the site says that it should. Have i done something wrong?
Thanks!
@Cmarti
Do you mean for when using rockbox? When using iTunes obviously that isn’t relevant, unless I’ve missed something?
In the rockbox case, I confess I didn’t try that – but as you can’t dual-boot a 7th gen, is disk-mode (in the sense of what you get when pressing select and play together) still available?
There’s a disk-mode option in the boot-menu on the 7.5th gen, which I think is part of emcore, but I thought I read somewhere that wasn’t reliable (and when I tried it with a hd pod I recall I got strange results, including DOS-style truncated filenames), so I just boot into rockbox then copy to the pod using explorer.
Anyway, my next plan is to either try a different PC and/or update the USB drivers on this one. Its still possible it might be the PC that’s the problem (ages ago it had great trouble syncing a sony flash player, constantly getting stuck)
I’m not sure whether I should carry on filling up this thread with narrating my ongoing ipod saga, but, in case anything useful comes of it, just one more post…
With the SSD one, am now wondering if maybe it isn’t heat – synching small amounts at a time still led to corruption after only 5Gb.
But its not at all clear to me that the corruption problem when using rockbox is the same thing as when using iTunes – the corruption seems exactly the same as happened at least once when trying to use Rockbox on a HD-based ipod – a directory full of nonsense filenames that can’t be deleted.
So maybe _this_ corruption is actually due to Rockbox’s dodgy USB handler and not the ssd mod at all? (I used beyondwind’s rockbox patch). I don’t even know how I managed to ‘fix’ this issue on the old HD rockbox pod, rather it just went away the next time I tried synching.
Meanwhile, with the sdxc card, am still unable to sync a full 250gb without it then becoming corrupt. With the current pod I’m using it now tends to freeze up for short periods while synching, but then unfreezes. Windows event viewer reports that those temporary freezes are caused by a ‘controller error’ on the drive associated with the ipod. I don’t recall getting quite the same thing with the sdxc in the previous ipod I tried, so it might yet be down to specific issues with each ipod logic board.
Again though, when fully loaded up it immediately went to the apple reboot loop. It didn’t happen when stopped and disconnected half-way – it seems more likely to happen when I’m close to filling the card.
@ Pete, have you tried to load the iPod while it’s on Disk Mode? That’s how we all do it anyways
Hi Tarkan,
Finally recieved my Qumox 128SDXC today, got everything installed and it’s working like a charm! Amazing job man! So happy with it. My old dusty Ipod’s got a new life! The only drawback is that I’ve had to order a new front/back casing as I damaged them on the opening process. I tried to be carefull but they won’t fit together like they used to. My fault!
Anyway, great product! 100% recomended
…It’s extremely hard to pin this down though.
Now I think of it, I was previously using a different USB cable with the sdxc pod, but then just started using the firewire y-cable arrangement with all the ipods, not just the ssd one. And coincidence or otherwise, the sdxc one does seem to have gotten worse in terms of getting corrupted since I started using that cable with it. It seems to corrupt more frequently than it did before.
I’ve tried several different usb leads (though not in a systematic way), finally settling on the y-cable with the firewire charger.
However,I’ve gone back to trying the ssd pod at the moment.
When I try to sync to the ssd pod, iTunes now crashes after only a few tens of Gb, leaving the ipod corrupted, and when I check event viewer I see lots of ‘bad block’ error messages appearing, relating to the ipod drive as the sync starts to fail. However, checking the ssd for bad sectors with aomei in the external enclosure reports perfect health and no bad sectors.
I can’t help but suspect this is a heat issue – the ssd gets very hot, even with the case open. The stupid sticky label samsung put on it surely can’t help as it must act as an insulator – I’m now wondering if removing it and putting a thermal pad or even paste on instead would help – it would then transfer the heat to the 2000mah battery though – would it work to use the battery as a heatsink? Maybe another pad on the battery would then transfer the heat effectively to the casing?
Tried it with rockbox. I thought maybe with rockbox I could remove the ssd and then load it up in the enclosure, then put it back. But it seems if I take it out of the ipod and put it in the enclosure, windows then sees it as unallocated and I can’t write to it (is that method of loading the ssd only possible with a 5th gen?).
copying files to the ssd in rockbox mode starts at a respectible 15mb/s but gets slower and slower to half that (heat?) and then fails after only 20-30gb or so as ipod gets corrupted. I think I need to find a way to keep the ssd cooler, including once the case is closed up.
Hmmm, tried again (with a different battery) – left it syncing all night, then as soon as I ejected it, got the menu OK, go to play something and get the apple reboot icon. Sure enough, when checked via card reader it’s changed itself to 24mb+29gb unformatted + rest unallocated.
I suppose it might be that the 3 ipods all have subtle logic board faults (all were second-hand). Though one of them at least works perfectly with a hd.
Will try h2test when have time.
@Pete – so what is common between everything? iFlash bundle + usb lead + computer?
I cannot imagine all 3 iPods have such a fault causing these kind of problems.
Sorry to add: the partition table seems correct for a 7g iPod, 24Mb boot partitions then a pseudo allocated partition and then the rest is unallocated.
Am using the PNY 256gb one – got it from US amazon in the end. I didn’t test initially with h2test because I went to do so and then realised it would take all day. But it was from amazon itself.
Total library is about 36000 tracks, including podcasts and audiobooks, total about 250gb (getting larger as I am reripping cds at higher bitrates).
I can’t get either ssd or sdxc to work at all reliably, though they each go wrong in slightly different ways. If they don’t fail when synching initially they become corrupt the next time they are connected, or, at least for the sdxc, sometimes they suddenly fail while playing. Bad artwork seems to be the usual first symptom.
Last attempt to sync to the sdxc I stopped it part way via the ‘stop’ button on iTunes (with view to disconnecting and checking it was not corrupt already, as its exasperating getting to the end and then it being corrupt when you eject), only for itunes to freeze up, and then for all the tracks so far transferred to appear as ‘other’ and be deleted upon verifying, putting me back to the start again.
One thing I don’t understand is why, when they corrupt themselves, they always, according to both AOMEI and Gparted, change themselves to a 21mb+59gb (unformatted)+ rest unallocated partition arrangement. Any idea what that is about?
@Pete
I have an iPod Mini, 5.5G Video and a 7.5G Classic. Also have an extra 5.5G Video for sale.