Apple's iPod Classic will go down in history as best-in-class technology. There is no PC/Mac conflict here, these are just facts, and I still use my iPod on long trips today. But even the MP3 high street is getting old, and the iPod's rotating platter HDD is certainly showing its age in the solid state era. But what if it could be replaced with something a little faster?

The iPod Classic was discontinued in 2014, and most of the iPod Classics still alive are probably much older than that; that's a pretty long operating life for an HDD, and usually a death sentence for most batteries (my iPod still has a few days of battery life for some reason), even though it has been out of operation for several years.

But rather than accept that your device is dying, how about modifying it yourself? iFlash-Sata v10 is designed to accommodate one M.2 SATA SSD (note: SATA, not NVMe) in size 2242 (slightly smaller than the default drive size of 2280). It is designed to accommodate one M.2 SATA SSD (note: SATA, not NVMe) in size 2242 (slightly smaller than the default drive size of 2280).

This is exactly the kit used by the YouTube channel DankPods, who tackle this very mod in their latest video titled "PC SSD in an iPod Classic". Guess what they modded into their iPod Classic? Yes, an M.2 SSD worthy of a desktop machine. And it works great.

That is, if you ignore the fact that the drive (and, indeed, most of the buttons) are hanging off the modified iPod. This is mainly due to DankPod user error, and DankPod has a history of modifying many things.

At least they are treading that ground so that you know what not to do. Of course, there are a few other drawbacks. For one thing, the lifespan of the famous iPod Classic changes quite dramatically with the use of M.2 SSDs. Also, the iPod Classic may need to be tweaked often to sync with your machine. Also, it gets pretty hot.

Perhaps it would be best to follow DankPod's expert advice and use the less speedy but much more convenient SD card iFlash modification board instead.