iPod Mini's MicroDrive in a dig. camera ?

[polanri]

Hi all,

I've read on a Mac news site that Apple uses 4 Gb microdrives inside the new mini iPods, are theses the same microdrives as the ones used in digital cameras such as the Sony DSC-F828 ?

If yes, theoretically, beraking apart an iPod mini to take the drive inside and use it in a digital camera sould be working... Maybe someone have tried this ?

I know it's really bad to brake apart such a cool device (I own a 10 Gb iPod and 2 Macs) but I need a microdrive and I've calculated this: I live in Europe and have a friend who goes to the US these days, if he buys me a $249 Mini iPod and I can use the microdrive inside I save lots of money (a 2.2 Gb microdrive here costs $271).

Someone have thoughts or answers about this, thanks :)

[AndyH]

Originally posted by polanri
Hi all,

I've read on a Mac news site that Apple uses 4 Gb microdrives inside the new mini iPods, are theses the same microdrives as the ones used in digital cameras such as the Sony DSC-F828 ?

If yes, theoretically, beraking apart an iPod mini to take the drive inside and use it in a digital camera sould be working... Maybe someone have tried this ?

I know it's really bad to brake apart such a cool device (I own a 10 Gb iPod and 2 Macs) but I need a microdrive and I've calculated this: I live in Europe and have a friend who goes to the US these days, if he buys me a $249 Mini iPod and I can use the microdrive inside I save lots of money (a 2.2 Gb microdrive here costs $271).

Someone have thoughts or answers about this, thanks :)

I've read on these forums that it won't work, as the drive in the iPod Mini is not enclosed in the housing and doesn't have all of the connections to make it a "plug-and-play" installation into a digital camera. Sorry.

[polanri]

Thanks a lot AndyH, this answers my question :)

I won't save money but at least I won't have to "sacrify" such a nice object...

[AndyH]

Originally posted by polanri
Thanks a lot AndyH, this answers my question :)

I won't save money but at least I won't have to "sacrify" such a nice object...

I did some more digging around, and I found this page (http://www.ipoding.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1681) which says that you can use the iPod Mini hard drive as a compact flash hard drive for a digicam. So I'm not sure who's right. We probably won't know for certain until someone receives their iPod Mini and is brave enough (or stupid enough?!) to open it up and take it apart.

[vasu]

I read elsewhere that a lot of people are getting the Creative Muvo2 player which also uses a 4gb microdrive, and currently is $199 on pre-order at amazon. Apprantly a lot of photographers are getting them to crack open and use the microdrive.

-vasu

[Brock]

It's not a MicroDrive perse like your probly thinking of, it's a small form-factor hard drive, 4 GB created by Hitachi. But NOT a microdrive.

[yashan]

Originally posted by vasu
I read elsewhere that a lot of people are getting the Creative Muvo2 player which also uses a 4gb microdrive, and currently is $199 on pre-order at amazon. Apprantly a lot of photographers are getting them to crack open and use the microdrive.

-vasu

Just as a heads up for people who might be interested in this, you have to get one of the older Muvo2 players. The new ones that are coming out have the drives soldered in place to prevent drive removal.

I also think the drives are of the CompactFlash II type. Only the newer (and possibly more expensive) cameras accept them.

[PlatinumX]

See this link for all your questions regarding microdrives (http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=18&threadid=275972&highlight_key=y&keyword1=muvo)

To sum the thing up, you can buy a Creative Muvo2 for about ~$200 (or less if you go through some trouble), pull out the Hitachi microdrive, and sell the empty Muvo2 player, which somebody can use if they put another compactflash card in there to play mp3's and whatnot. You'll come out WAYYYY ahead than if you were to do what you suggested in your original post.

Of course, to break apart an iPOD mini just for the microdrive would be a tragedy in itself...:)

[Messiahtosh]

It is not a flash player, come on people.

[lilmoonee]

look on ebay..search "muvo2" and u will see TONS of muvo2 with removed microdrives haha

[AndyH]

Originally posted by Messiahtosh
It is not a flash player, come on people.

Ummm, I don't think anyone said it was. There are hard-disk type CompactFlash cards available for digital cameras:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/microdrive.html

We're all aware that the iPod Mini uses a hard-drive to store music.

[shaun3000]

Originally posted by Brock
It's not a MicroDrive perse like your probly thinking of, it's a small form-factor hard drive, 4 GB created by Hitachi. But NOT a microdrive.

The drive in Creative's Muvo is most certainly a Microdrive. Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive division some time ago, including their Microdrives. The drive in the iPod may be a Microdrive, or it may be a drive based on similar technology but not compatible with the CompactFlash spec, thus not technically a microdrive.

The drive in Muvo2 is the exact same 4 gig Microdrive being sold for an average of $400, by itself. The Muvo2 can be had for under $200.

[Phil]

Originally posted by yashan
Just as a heads up for people who might be interested in this, you have to get one of the older Muvo2 players. The new ones that are coming out have the drives soldered in place to prevent drive removal.

I believe that was purely a rumor started by one person. A rep from Creative's newsgroup said specifically that the drives inside the Muvo2 are CF drives that are not soldered. Creative couldn't care less whether people bought the Muvo2 to use as an mp3 player or to extract the drive - they would want to sell as many as possible.

[WorldOfWarcraft]

Yeah how do you open up the iPod mini? Theres not a single screw or some kind of opening within the iPod mini case so I could pry it open. I bought this primarily for its CF microdrive because I couldnt get Movu2 4GB.