Sluggish sales of 1.8-inch drives may signal end to iPod classic

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 76
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    In some cases, yes. But those saying they need more than 160 GB for their music collections are a bit suspect in most cases.



    Not really. I count podcasts as my music collection and with video pod casts 250GB is nothing.



    True, I don't need all of them with me all the time, but it's nice not having to think about what I sync.



    I certainly need more then 64 GB just for music, so for me - unfortunately - hard drives are still appealing.
  • Reply 42 of 76
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FineWine View Post


    My trouble is having enough external hard drive capacity to store it in a convenient form. I have two 2TB Western Digital drives and several 1TB drives. I'm waiting anxiously for higher capacity 3.5" drives which I want to RAID. A couple of 10TB in a RAID 1 configuration would be nice... would take care of my music storage needs for a couple of years, until I outgrow that



    Drobo. Love mine for my digital photography as well as my iTunes folder that is bulging with music, Podcasts and video Podcasts.



    I really like that I can format the partition for larger then I physically have capacity for (otherwise known as thin provisioning). When I need more space, I just slap in another drive, or if I am full up, swap a lower capacity drive for a higher capacity drive without having to re-do anything. I can buy cheaper lower capacity drives in multiples (the price sweat spot) and then move up to larger drives after the bleeding edge pricing has subsided.
  • Reply 43 of 76
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post


    Not really. I count podcasts as my music collection and with video pod casts 250GB is nothing.



    True, I don't need all of them with me all the time, but it's nice not having to think about what I sync.



    I certainly need more then 64 GB just for music, so for me - unfortunately - hard drives are still appealing.



    Yes, but many people don't count podcasts or videocasts in that. Just compressed songs.
  • Reply 44 of 76
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Yes, but many people don't count podcasts or videocasts in that. Just compressed songs.



    I never did get the artificial distinction. It's all content I want to listen to or watch while I'm mobile, and it takes up space. Therefore it's a problem



    Different strokes I suppose...
  • Reply 45 of 76
    bregaladbregalad Posts: 816member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    In some cases, yes. But those saying they need more than 160 GB for their music collections are a bit suspect in most cases.



    At home I rip CDs to iTunes as Apple lossless. My library is approximately 190 GB and I haven't started ripping my dozens of classical CDs yet.



    However, I don't see any reason to use lossless files with an iPod. 256 bit is virtually indistinguishable from lossless and given that my iPod is used in places with lots of background noise (cars, subways, walking along busy streets, etc.) even that is probably overkill.



    A 64GB iPod should be able to hold all my music plus a selection of podcasts.
  • Reply 46 of 76
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Guys, I'm not saying that there aren't honest people out there, but P2P still has several times as many downloads a month as iTunes, or all the legit sources put together. That music is going somewhere, and most of it is going in people's iPods.
  • Reply 47 of 76
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    One drop and those things bust anyway. I've bought 3 of them over the years and I've had 2 Sad Mac faces too many. I still have an 80Gb that I rarely use but am careful when using it.
  • Reply 48 of 76
    trajectorytrajectory Posts: 647member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    In some cases, yes. But those saying they need more than 160 GB for their music collections are a bit suspect in most cases.



    My 150 gig music collection is 100% legal. I've been an audiophile since I had my first job in school and could start buying my own music. I've replaced LPs with cassettes, then cassettes with CDs. I think the music industry got their pound of flesh out of me already.



    Apple made buying music affordable and even fun again with the iTunes Store. Being able to buy a single song wasn't anything new, but, it has been a very long time (since 45s, actually) since you could do that. Unfortunately, the greedy and stupid RIAA still seems oblivious to all of this.
  • Reply 49 of 76
    elrothelroth Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    I'll never understand why people seem to need this much space just for music.



    I'm a music collector and I always buy full albums instead of songs and people are always ribbing me about how "stupid large" my music library is but even so it's only 16 Gigs or so. I can't imagine even owning 10 times that amount of music let alone really needing to play it all the time.



    If it was for music *and* video it makes some kind of sense, but music alone should not take up that much space.



    Maybe it's because you compress your music. I use Apple Lossless, so an 16GB nano only holds about 600 songs. Going on a long car trip, or using it every day for commuting, it's nice to have 160 GB, so there's a lot of variety. I shuffle by album, so I'm surprised and happy when it changes to an album I haven't heard for a long time (my music collection is over 300 GB, and it's all music I really like, and all legal - from CDs I bought, with a small number of iTunes downloads not available on CD).
  • Reply 50 of 76
    elrothelroth Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bregalad View Post


    At home I rip CDs to iTunes as Apple lossless. My library is approximately 190 GB and I haven't started ripping my dozens of classical CDs yet.



    However, I don't see any reason to use lossless files with an iPod. 256 bit is virtually indistinguishable from lossless and given that my iPod is used in places with lots of background noise (cars, subways, walking along busy streets, etc.) even that is probably overkill.



    I disagree - with in-ear headphones that seal out outside noise, I still put Lossless files on my iPod.
  • Reply 51 of 76
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    I'll never understand why people seem to need this much space just for music.



    I'm a music collector and I always buy full albums instead of songs and people are always ribbing me about how "stupid large" my music library is but even so it's only 16 Gigs or so. I can't imagine even owning 10 times that amount of music let alone really needing to play it all the time.



    If it was for music *and* video it makes some kind of sense, but music alone should not take up that much space.



    My 200 live dead shows take up 1/2 the space add that to 9 g of hendrix and 18 g of pink floyd .. well you get the point. bootleg live shows .
  • Reply 52 of 76
    thomprthompr Posts: 1,521member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Well



    There's goes my dream of ever owning a Gigapod.



    I'm sure you meant "Terapod".



    Thompson
  • Reply 53 of 76
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by thompr View Post


    I'm sure you meant "Terapod".



    Thompson



    Petapod.
  • Reply 54 of 76
    wilcowilco Posts: 985member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    I'll never understand why people seem to need this much space just for music.



    Because they have enough music to necessitate the need for so much space?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    II'm a music collector and I always buy full albums instead of songs and people are always ribbing me about how "stupid large" my music library is but even so it's only 16 Gigs or so.



    A "music collector" with only 16GBs of music?
  • Reply 55 of 76
    jousterjouster Posts: 460member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Well



    There's goes my dream of ever owning a Gigapod.



    Your dream is merely postponed.



    Edit: I mean your teraPod dream
  • Reply 56 of 76
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Talk about reading too much into a story. Let's look at what the original article AppleInsider linked to said...



    It only said that Samsung and Toshiba were having trouble selling their 250 GB models. It said nothing about lower capacity drives. And Samsung's 250 GB version specifically only spins at 3600 rpm, which makes is less then ideal for iPod use as there are already slight lag in the Classic's UI while it's waiting for disk acess (I believe the current drives in iPods run at 4200 rpm?).



    The drives cost between $175-200 retail. I don't know what the wholesale price would be, but Apple isn't going to use anything that would force them to increase the price. And if the drives are of the thicker variety (they are 2-platter drives), Apple would again defer to the slimmer lower-capacity drives to keep the iPod thinner.



    One company is offering the Toshiba drive to upgrade your iPod for $295. But it only works in the generation 5.5 iPods due to some imcompatibility with the newer Classic. And if you have the lower capacity 5.5 iPod, you need to purchase a new back because the drive it too thick to fit in the case. Which means it's probably also too big to fit in the current 120 GB Classic's case.



    So all-in-all, these drives are too expensive, too thick, too slow, and apparently incompatible with the iPod Classic. Why would Apple use them? And if not Apple, who else would make a market for them? You don't really need a 250 GB drive for a netbook, it's not like you are editting photos or video on one.



    Sooner or later Apple will stop selling hard drive based iPods. But lack of sales of 250 GB units is hardly an indicator of that. It only means that Apple may never sell a 250 GB hard drive based iPod.
  • Reply 57 of 76
    vulcan1vulcan1 Posts: 56member
    Quite funny, i was a couple of weeks ago thinking about a 32GB or 64GB Flash iPod Classic, i'm sure there would be a market for that too, not everybody wants a touch or Nano. Could basically look the as it does with a click-wheel, but be much thinner and have an awesome batterylife
  • Reply 58 of 76
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,630member
    250GB iPod Touch. Nuf said.
  • Reply 59 of 76
    finewinefinewine Posts: 92member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Guys, I'm not saying that there aren't honest people out there, but P2P still has several times as many downloads a month as iTunes, or all the legit sources put together. That music is going somewhere, and most of it is going in people's iPods.



    There's legal, there's illegal, and then there's gray. I have a metric ton of concerts which have never been put out on CD or LP commercially at all, and the legal status of this is somewhat gray - not fully legal, but it would be a hard case to put through the legal system... part of the charm of concerts is audience participation and ambient noise, which you can only copyright if you explicitly do so (f.ex. "live" CD), but otherwise, how do you copyright an airplane noise above, when it is not part of a performance? To disentangle all that - good luck. There are people out there who have hundreds or thousands of concerts just from TGD, and the band encouraged such recordings and trading. I don't think even the RIAA would want to tackle that one. Bottom line, there is an incredible amount of music out there to be downloaded legally (unsigned bands that want to promo), or where the music falls into a gray area, and you never even have to count illegal music downloads to easily get to terabytes of music.
  • Reply 60 of 76
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Vulcan1 View Post


    Quite funny, i was a couple of weeks ago thinking about a 32GB or 64GB Flash iPod Classic, i'm sure there would be a market for that too, not everybody wants a touch or Nano. Could basically look the as it does with a click-wheel, but be much thinner and have an awesome batterylife



    I agree. For those of us with fatter hands, the iPod nano is sometimes too small. A 64GB or 128 GB flash based iPod, twice the size of an iPod nano with a click wheel, and a 24 hour battery life would be sure to fill a niche.



    Why we're at it, throw in a pico projector!
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