…That shiny new 80 or 160gig iPod may seem like a tempting candidate for a handy portable hard drive. And it can be, if used properly. There are several things to remember when using iPods in this way. The first of which is the fact that the drives used in iPods do not seem to be designed for heavy data use, such as the drive in your PC/Mac Desktop or Laptop. Those drives have been designed for the constant reading/writing that a modern computer must do, day in and day out. The drives used in iPods however seem to have been designed more for the task at which they are used the most, which is being filled up with music (an intensive date writing session), and then being spun up and read continuously for the duration of their operating life (several years on average). Even when being used exclusively in read mode (when playing music or videos on your iPod), the iPod and its drive utilize a data buffer in the form of a flash memory module. What happens is, your iPod’s hard drive spins up, transfers the song you select, and the following songs/videos into the buffer until the buffer is full. Then the drive stops and your iPod runs off the flash buffer until you select a new song or video outside the buffer, at which point the process repeats. In this way, the drive is not constantly running, therefore putting less strain and more importantly for the operation of a portable device using less battery power than if it were running continuously.