One of these is not like the other: iPod classic upgrade

One of the great things with electronc devices in previous years was the ability to replace/repair items but also importantly as the device ages, to replae the battery. Apple have a certain reputation when it comes to repairability of their portable devices (iPhones, iPods etc) and its not positive as they cram more and more into smaller spaces. However there is a set of iPod that can be relatively easily self serviced and revived.

The details here are not new and theres been many sites other the years that have described the DIY mods and extensions that you can perform on your iPod. So this is not what this is about.

My motivation for using, at time of writing, a 15 year old iPod for music might be counterintuitive:

• the interface is very basic: can't add to current play queue or scrub music so easily
• limited audit file suppport (if we don't go with Rockbox): mp3, m4a (incl lossless), wav
• only availble as second hand so quality hit and miss

Even with these concerns, when you consider the non-replacable battery drain/wear on your phone then it's an easy choice to revisit the full size iPods (original, 2nd to 5th/5.5, 6th/7th gen) where these batteries can be replaced. Furthermore, even in 2021, these iPod parts (batteries, headphone/hold jacks, screens, front/rear plates) for the 4th gen ownards are readily available on eBay and aliexpress etc.

Assuming that the screen and logic board of the iPod are not destroyed, then the battery replacement and storage upgrade are the main DIY themes but there are as always a catch.

Of the full size iPods, the 5/5.5G aka Video (a1136) is the easiest model to upgrade and best value proposition: form factor, functionality and ease of modification - the latter iPod Classic (aka 6th/7th generation) are notorious for being difficult to open with its metal faceplate. Additionally the 5/5.5 generation was the last to use the Wolfson DAC which (apparently) has a less clinical sound rather than that of the Cirrus DAC introduced in the 6th generation iPod.


I orginally had a 30Gb 5.5G iPod and started to upgrade the storage and battery.

The storage upgrade is motivated by two points:

• power hungry hard disk and stability issues - whilst the harddisk only spins up to fill the cache its still more than a solid sate storage
• limited storage

The standard upgrade path here is an iFlash board: a SD (Solo, Duo, Quad..) or SSD (mSata) upgrade. Personally, I don't have the need for anything more than 64GB or 128GB of storage in an iPod. In terms of power consumption, the 2016 iFlash runtime comparison shows SD access is the least hungry with HDD being >2x and mSata >4.5x more expensive in terms of consumption.

The other point to remember is that the iPod 5G came in 2 configurations: the 30GB/60GB (original 5th gen) or 30GB/80GB (2nd iteration aka 5.5 aka 5 Enhanced). There are two important difference between the 30GB and 60/80GB:

• depth of the rear case: thin (30GB) vs thick
• amount of onboard RAM

The onboard memory affects the iPod's ability to shuffle all tracks or to start for devices with a LOT (> ~25,000) tracks. This is likely the ability to load and parse the iTunesDB database on the iPod. This limitation also puts an implicit limit on the max size of replacement storage that you add to the device.

The depth of the rear case has an impact on the battery upgrade option. 30GB battery replacement units are typically 450-550mah and are limited by the battery height whereas the 60/80GB can hold a thicker and longer battery. For the bigger, 1800-3000mah batteries, these are only compatible with the thicker cases.

When upgrading a 30GB (which is always factory fitted with a thin back) to an aftermarket thick back, we can transplant the original headphone and hold jack to the thicker case. However, whilst the headphone/hold jack will fit and function you will notice that the headphone jack is not flush with the case and the hold switch may be a little recessed in the case, making it less easy to use. This is because the thin back is curved andthi is refleted in the plastic mouldings for the headphone/hold jacks whereas the thick version have flat plastic mouldings and identifiable by the square bump on the underside of the headphone jack.

^{top left: the original thin-back headphone jack in a thick case - notice the curve; top right: thick-back headphone jack (show bottom with the square bump) in thick back}
The changes to the original 30GB 5.5G was thus: replace harddisk with iFlash Solo, new 2000mah battery with thick rear case.

Model/mods	Depth	Weight
iPod 5.5G, 30GB original	11.5mm	130g
iPod 5.5G, iFlash Solo + thin 450mah battery	11.5mm	115g
iPod 5.5G, iFlash Solo + 2000mah battery/thick case	15.0mm	125g
iPod Touch 1G, 32GB original	8.4mm	105g

The original Apple specs claimed up to 14hrs music playback on its 550mah battery. The original 15 year old battery barely lasted 2 hours for playback but the new 450mah battery would only give around 7 hours of real world playback (music with different bitrates and skipping through songs etc) with the original HD and about 8.5hrs with the iFlash Solo. So surprisingly not a massive increase - with the 2000mah battery I was able to get about 36hrs of realworld playback spread over 4 days.

As for the weight, the "full" upgrade is just a little lighter but what's the cost?

• iFlash Solo - 28GBP
• 64GB SD card - 14GB
• 2000mah battery - 13GB
• thick case - 10GB
• thick headphone/hold jack - 8GB

At total of 73GBP for upgrade parts that should hope to provide a good number years of service.