First Look: iFlash-Sata

First Look: iFlash-Sata

Just a brief look at my new product in my iFlash series.

While the iFlash enables the iPod to work with Compact Flash and SDXC cards, the new iFlash-Sata opens up all Sata based storage devices – mSata and externally powered Sata Hard drives and SSD drives.

The iFlash-Sata will work in the Video iPod (5g, 5.5g) and the newer Classics (6g, 6.5g, 7g).

Be warned the current crop of mSata drives are power hungry, so runtimes are not great compared to CF/SDXC – but still worth while if you must have a 1Tb iPod!

Here is some pictures of the mSata configuration.

iFlash-Sata Front

iFlash-Sata Front

iFlash-Sata side mSata

iFlash-Sata side mSata

iFlash-Sata Angled Shot

iFlash-Sata Angled Shot

 

240 thoughts on “First Look: iFlash-Sata

  1. Alex

    Hi!
    I just put in my iPod video 5g new original battery and iflash mSata with 240gb Kingston UV500. Works good, but runtime about 10 hours of mp3 music and it restarts 2 times a day.
    I think because of the light battery. Maybe 3000mAh can solve this problem?

  2. Steven

    Hi, I now have got my SSD upgraded ipod classic up and running thanks to all the info on this site. I wanted to keep it well protected but as I have changed its thickness with a new back plate it wont fit in my old clear plastic case. So does anyone know anywhere were you can get a thick back case for my IPOD classic? Lots on ebay, but appear to be all for the thin version. And when you search for thick back cases you just get replacement metal back covers for the ipod, not a clear case which I am after. Thanks.

    1. Support Post author

      @Steven – Search by specific model 5G 60Gb or 80GB, and the 6g 160GB models, maybe you can find something that way.

  3. Matthieu

    Hi,
    Just a small post to let you know that yucun MSata SSD works fine with Ipod video 5th gen initially 60 gb (256 gb at least) no battery drain observed, faster that SDXC to upload music, no heat…

    Now I have just a question for the support… Did you planned to develop an Iflash M.2 SSD adaptor? M.2 SSDs look like to be easier to find, and a bit cheaper… now I have no idea about the performance of M.2 vs mSata in Ipod, neither if it is doable…

  4. Serge

    Hey guys, I had an mSata adapter previosusly and the SSD I’m using was fully recognised. Now my iPod sees it as a 128Gb one (half the capacity). Is there a chance something goes wrong? Thanks!

  5. ALEXANDRO BRYAN SOTO MATEOS

    A very happy customer here! Well I used a Samsung 860EVO 500GB mSATA SSD and it worked just right!
    I read some posts about how to install the disk and some differ between them almost being esoteric, so I just opened the iPod classic 7th gen (lucky me!) then I replaced the HD with the iflash-SATA adapter with the SSD on it, then I connected to the MacBook Air, it recognised the SSD and said it needed to be initialised so I did, formatting it HFS+, then iTunes saw the iPod and asked to restore it, so I click yes and iTunes downloaded the last firmware and installed it, then one reboot and it was done.
    Then I used CarbonCopyCloner to restore a previous back-up of my 160GB iPod, almost 130GB of music! so after crossing my fingers everything went smoothly, then to stay in the safe side, I copied the remaining music but album by album until having 200GB (more or less) on the iPod and everything seems to be fine, I´ve noticed some alterations on the albums configuration (mixed songs on different albums and the like, but I´ll check on that someday with time to spare) I haven´t let my iPod to get low battery, but now reading that the EVO850 have some “low power loss prevention” issues, it almost gave me something until I checked the box and I´m using the EVO860 version, and it seems that support have tested them without any issues, so far this my experience, so now I do have an iPod Classic 7th gen 500GB and everything runs nice, the battery is the original the iPod came with. Next mod will be an iPod 5th gen 30GB with a 120GB SSD but that´ll be next month.

    1. Support Post author

      @Alexandro – Thanks for the feedback, yes the 860EVO are much better than the older 850EVO – less of the Power Loss Mode issues!!

  6. Moma

    Disregard the last post so inoder to partition the disk I need to format it first right? It doesn’t allow me to shrink the disk. It only allows me to format it. Is this a good idea?

  7. Moma

    I have another question the video doesn’t really show how to partition the Drive. I already know how to intsall Rockbox the only problem is I don’t know how to partition the drive.

  8. Moma

    Hello I have installed Rockbox on my Ipod problem is it only read 124 gb. Did I do anything wrong during the installment? It still reads the limited space that itunes had originally.

  9. Moma

    Hello I have installed Rockbox to my Ipod classic the problem is my Ipod only reads 120gb and I installed the 1TB SSD is there something that I did wrong?

  10. Support

    Pleased to report the new Samsung 860EVO mSata drives, 500GB and 1TB have been tested and fully working with the iFlash-Sata (v7 or newer).

    While power consumption seems similiar to the 850EVO, it has a revised power loss mode – which (in our testing) means you should not see the red X when the iPod suffers battery or power loss issues.

  11. Moma

    Is there any way of working around this? I don’t have any more iPods and can’t afford to buy another one! Can I switch something out of the iPod and work on it from there?

  12. Moma

    Hello I need help configuring a SSD that I am planning to put in an 80 GB IPod Classic. Is the 80 GB iPods logic board compatible with a 1Tb Iflash adapter?

    1. Support

      @Moma – If you mean a 6th Gen 80Gb Classic then no, the 6th gen iPods are limited to 128GB by the Apple firmware – you can use 1Tb with 80GB 5.5g iPod Video models if that is the model you meant.

  13. Alex

    Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

    I don’t have time to buy multiples and test, but what I will do is return this battery and order a new one from another supplier.
    Maybe I’ll have better luck with one from iFixit – or maybe they get theirs from the same suppliers as on eBay and Amazon?!

    Failing that, I’ll stick the original battery back in.

    Any idea what sort of playback time I should get with the dual SD adapter, 128GB Card and Lossless tracks? I’ve done a new test today and the replacement battery is already in the red after 6.5 hours.
    That’s worse than the original battery performs.

    1. Support

      @Alex – 5g due to there high operating power consumption don’t have as much differential between HDD and SD, but still I would expect a 25% to 50% increase in runtime vs the original HDD.

      For the layperson the best test for the battery, is how does it perform out of the box, without charging? if you can get several hours runtime out of it – then that will confirm you have a battery which is fresh, has not self-discharged in to distress conditions and has good capacity.

  14. Alex

    The battery capacity on that iPod is higher than my 5G one, so it’s hard to do a comparison to that resource.

    I understood that using solid state storage would use less power than a hard drive with moving parts.
    Is it the case that this is offset by other factors (mentioned in the posting), such as higher start-up power consumption?

    I would expect that a new, replacement battery would provide a longer run time, because 1) its new, 2) battery technology has moved on, and 3) the power draw from my SD Card is Lower.
    How can it be that if I stick the old battery (used, 12 years old) back in, it plays for around the same time?
    That doesn’t make sense.

    Confused!

    ?

    1. Support

      @Alex – The reality is that the battery you bought is rubbish. Sadly majority of the iPod batteries bought on Amazon/Ebay/etc are in poor condition, the cells used are poor quality, and then the storage conditions are not ideal.

      We buy batteries all the time – 75% of them arrive not able to power the iPod because while in storage they have dropped below the cut-off/minimum voltage, most we can recover by charging – but they just do not hold charge well.

      Good example is standby time, switch the iPod off and leave alone. Most of these batteries barely last 7 days. Some of our test iPods which have the original Apple battery from 9/10/12 years ago, we can switch the iPod off – and we can still switch the iPod back on 2 months later with hardly no loss of charge!!! We have an very old 5g which we had not used in close to 8 months, and you know what it still switched on after this amount of time.

      Our method now is to buy several batteries at the same time, measure the voltage they arrive with – if near/below the cut-off voltage, we throw in the bin. Then the remaining we charge and measure the self-discharge rate with no load, and with load – the ones which hold charge best we keep to use.

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