paulr

Having always been told that magnets and electronics dont mix, i have an

Ipod classic
Mobile phone
Garman sat nav

........all with protective leather cases that have magnetic catches.

Is there any chance of interference, or even damage to the device by having a magnet only a few millimetres away?

Klaatu

No! The magnetic field generated by these "catches" is insignificant. The device is likely sufficiently shielded from that sort of interference.

Stick it in an IBM 3470 tape drive "degause" unit, different story I'd expect.

paulr

I was always told dont put a magnet near a hard drive. Ipod classics have a hard drive.

Klaatu

Depends on the strength of the magnetic field. The items you're descibing would not be very powerful at all, but that doesn't mean you should go right out and try it lol.

The Zohan

I have wondered this myself, my ipod classic lives in its case, has done so since i got it some 24 months ago. No problems so far.

Leslie

It would have to be very strong magnets. Hard drives have extremely strong magnets inside then anyway. You can certainly upset a hard drive with a strong enough magnet, but I doubt that the catches would have any effect.

Les

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

iPods have hard drives? I would have thought it would be solid state memory?

Geezer

We used to have one of these here in days gone by as an Operator. They really were dangerous things!

Geezer

paulr

AFAIK the ipod classic has a hard drive.

Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

They do... and you can hear them spinning up from time to time.

paulr

And you can hear the click hard drives make.

Having said all that, i've a magnetic case catch on my ipod, and there has never been a problem.
I asked a guy in Carphone Warehouse about it the other day. He said magnetic catches drain the battery?

Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

That one is cobblers

paulr

Yes, i made the mistake of asking a sales guy aquestion mildly technical.

Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

I went to Maplins and was looking at solar chargers for my ipod.

I asked: how long would it would take to charge.
He said: oooh about 12 hours.
I replied: that's a loooong time.
He said: Well you could do it during the night when you are not using it....

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Its just a laptop drive. Much like many other MP3 player of similar capacities.

Klaatu

The "click" you can hear is the actuator arm tracking across the disk surface. The actuator arm is very much like a pick-up arm on a turntable except in the case of a "disk drive" the movement is "ramdom".

In terms of damage, you are at more risk from damaging the drive in these devices from physical abuse rather than from magnetic influences.

Incidentally, the gap between the actuator arm read head and the disk is so small it would be like getting a Boeing 747 to fly at full chat with undercarriage down only 1 inch from the ground.

In fact, oil from a finger print placed on a disk platter can cause a head crash. That's why they are assembled in clean rooms.

Klaatu

My first mainframe was an IBM 4381, with 32Mb RAM. My Nokia phone has 250 times more RAM than that. My Nikon D700 has 125 times more RAM.

But yes, it was a scary bit of kit to have to use regularly.

The Zohan

My laptop drive is around twice the thickness and almost as long as my 'pod - are the special (thinner/smaller sized drives that fit both devices?

Klaatu

It can still work at night in the right conditions, like a full moon.

Klaatu

And as Bender would say, bite my shiny metal ***. That's complete tripe advice!

Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

Can't be bothered to Google at the mo but IIRC the original ipod used a laptop drive and these days there is another smaller form factor specially for portable devices... I'm sure someone will tell us the details.

The Zohan

Bit like a werewolf or vampire then

Klaatu

Well, I work in the right conditions too, like being paid lots to do as little as possible. But it works, for me come night or day (It is Friday for me as it is already).

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

My mistake, iPod drive are smaller than typical laptop drives (1.8" vs 2.5"). I dissecteda few, but just never laid then side by side.

Some high capacity laptop drives are thicker than standard as they have more than one platter. IIRC ipod drives are single platter so will be thinner than a modern laptop drive which will more likely have more than one platter.

You will however find the same drives in some netbooks and bespoke laptops.