Use Your iPod as a Portable Hard Drive

“How can I use my iPod as a hard drive? I want to transfer some files from my work computer to my home computer.”

Windows recognizes iPods and most other portable media players as hard drives when plugged in using the USB cable. Any of the player’s available memory may be used for transporting files like Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs and virtually any other file type you wouldn’t ever listen to or watch on a portable player.

For step by step instructions on how to turn your iPod into a portable hard drive read

1. Connect iPod to your computer.
2. iTunes opens.
3. Select your iPod in the iTunes Source list.

   

4. Click the Options button in iTunes.

   

5. The iPod Preferences window appears.
6. Select “Enable disk use” or “Manually manage songs and playlists”. Either one will allow you to use iPod as a hard disk. If you select “Manually manage songs and playlists”, iTunes won’t automatically update iPod with the iTunes library. If you want iTunes to automatically update your iPod, select “Enable disk use” instead.

   

7. The iPod disk icon appears on the desktop and in Finder windows, and in My Computer in Windows. Double-click the icon and drag files to or from iPod’s window to copy them.
8. Make sure to eject iPod before disconnecting it from your computer.

These days you can get an ipod shuffle for around $70 which is about the same price as a USB flash drive, but the advantage is not only can you store files but you can store your music, which is pretty sweet.