::Mega iPod Update::

This post is a revisit to an earlier post about my attempt to convert an ordinary 60GB iPod video into a mega capacity 240GB whopper!

My first foray into the realm of defining a true "All Your Music In Your Pocket" device was a half success. I'd stumbled upon a hardware limit. When I replaced the HD with the super 240GB model, I also replaced the units logicboard. After much ta do I came to the conclusion that the new logicboard contained a RAM chip of 32MB in size. This was the problem. Widely talked about on the internet the 32MB board RAM wouldn't allow the 240GB HD to be filled with anymore than 118 to 121GB of tuneage. If you went past this limit, the iPod wouldn't come back after un-mounting it from the desktop. Forever stuck it would be in the Apple Logo Screen of Death. This issue is because the iTunes DB File size was hogging all the board RAM and not allowing anything to load properly.

Along with your music you get a little file called iTunes DB File. This file allows your iPod to load a section of music into its RAM thus allowing it to play more from RAM and less from a spinning HD. This RAM also allows your iPod to not skip as the song plays as you bump it around in your pocket and it saves battery because of the minimal HD use. The board RAM also loads and holds the iTunes DB File and acts as sort of a place holder. When you grab your iPod, scroll and select a song, it plays almost immediately. You can thank your board RAM and the DB File for working

together.

In most cases 32MB of board RAM is enough. But when you push the capacity to 240GB, your DB File also expands because of the increased content. For instance my DB file is 49.8MB (as seen in the picture on the right.)

This far exceeds the 32MB board RAM cap. The mission was to find a board with 64MB of RAM. Mission complete!

Though I still have 35GB of space on my HD, I have successfully loaded over 186GB of music and podcasts to my player. As time grows so to will the size of my music collection.

I'm happy to have a player that can grow with me!