[DRSpeed85]

The HD5 seems plagued by it early on, but even the rio karma and ipod doesnt seem like it lasts more than 2 years. I am yet to meet someone with a two year old ipod put through regular use. I am about to purchase my first HD based DAP and I am paranoid that it would fail once I remove all my music from my laptop. As I understand, flash based DAPs last for ages without much trouble.

 

[terrymx]

i owned a second hand ipod 2g for a while that had no problem. the iriver ihp120 i has was very sturdy and i treated it rough. i think those and my archos uses toshiba harddrive,

the one i had problem with was rio karma, with hitachi harddrive. ti didnt die but it was horrible, bunch of crashes and freeze up and i had to bang on it. alot of peolpe had problem with this player.

so i've used a quite a few of them hd players, and beside the infamous karma problems, which i didnt beleive would happen to me, i didnt get hd failure at all with other players. treat your player well and you should have no problems, if it has no problem in the first place. a lot of times online forum posting can exagerate problems.

 

[LFC_SL]

Well its the nature of a HD isn't it?

My advice - buy a decent case and treat it decent and you won't go wrong.

Although I doubt HD DAPs will last as long as tape/CD players for some time. Are there any technological advancements that could be implemented?

I'm a HD3 owner, and R.E a past thread, Sony pack their players tight. The casing is literally 1-2mm thick

Edit: the HD5 might be diff 'cos Sony have really cut back on materials since the HD1, which was made of heavier, solider feeling magnesium:

http://www.junto.co.uk/Consumer/Sony_NW_HD5.aspx

 

[Trance-Fusion]

i've only used the 3rd gen ipod. but my experience with it was/is great. i've had it for 3 years now, and it has only froze twice, never had it fail where my data was lost. personally i would say it's uncommon, but i've only used my ipod....

 

[fr4c]

I have an 3G iPod thats about 3 years old. I use it daily and not a single problem whatsoever, no crashes or freezeups.

I am a very happy camper.

 

[wolfen68]

IMO, if you have a DAP you use very regularly...after 3-4 years, consider your harddrive on borrowed time.

 

[blessingx]

Who said the iPod only lasts 2 years? I know there are a lot of myths about batteries only lasting 18 months, but are there ones about the hard drive now too?

Anyway had a first gen for over three years without any problems. Haven't had an issue with the newer fourth gen or photo either.

 

[stuartw101]

two of my friends both have ipods and they have had them for 2 years without any problems.

 

[nanahachi]

I don't know if this is a HDD problem or what, but it has happened to me multiple times with the 4gen ipods.

Previously, a 4th gen 40gig iPod I bought from a headfier would just freeze while playing. It did this intermittantly despite tips from the Apple folks. I used the updater (formatting it, reinstalling the newest firmware), I tried hard-booting it, yadda yadda. I ended up sending in that unit twice. On the 2nd or 3rd service call they replaced it with a (new?) unit.

This new unit has seemed to perform fine for the past 4-6 months. However, yesterday, it did the exact same thing. The iPod just froze during one song. I can't reboot it. Plugging it into my PC to recharge it does nothing (it won't recharge and is not recognized by my PC). I just set up a service request through Apple.

While my old, 2nd gen had a few probs to begin with, it ended up fine. This 4th generation, IME, has just been problematic as hell. I love my iPod, but am getting severely pissed.

(please, no comments about buying a different DAP instead)

 

[nikongod]

the 1.8" hdd's fail all the fuggen time. ipod, iriver, rio.... look around...

the 2.5" hdd's rarely fail.

enjoy.

 

[blessingx]

Nothing to my right or left. Care to site a stat?

 

[Jmmmmm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx Nothing to my right or left. Care to site a stat?

Yeah, I rarely hear about players having hd failures. I haven't heard about the x5's crashing, and I have almost never heard of ipods crashing either. I'm sure they happen, but I've never heard this as a 'problem.' Some players tend to hang/freeze a lot, like my zen micro did.

The only ones where it has been a 'problem' that I know about is with the karma, and even that I think is blown out of proportion. I was not gentle with my karma and never had a hd problem. The scroll-wheel, on the other hand...

 

[Imyourzero]

I don't think the HD failures are common, I just think you hear more about the failures when visiting online forums because people tend to be more vocal when they have a problem than when they have a perfectly functioning unit. This makes it seem like every other unit is failing when in fact, the people having problems are a small minority.

 

[wolfen68]

The stock hitachi 2.5" drive in my Archos Recorder just died after 3.5+ years of moderate use. I tried to baby it, oh well......

I've seen many desktop drives fail in helping others with their computers. Asking a portable device to work for a loooong time with a harddrive (which is fragile by design) is a tall order to fill.

I used my archos often in the car, and even though it was well cushioned, I could see it vibrating on the car console as I drove. It would get really bad on gravel roads. Same problem with mowing the lawn.

If these were used on a desk all of the time, the good harddrives should last almost as long as a full-size one. Put in portable use, there's all kinds of vibrations, jarrs, and movements we don't even think about.

Can't wait for large capacity flash drives.....

 

[headache]

Absolutely no problems with three iRiver HD-Players here (two iHP-120, one H340). They didn't even freeze a single time. All of them use toshiba-harddrives, as far as I know.

Although I dropped my H340 really hard some weeks ago

, it still works perfectly and Thom Yorke keeps on singing "let me out of here"