Q: Is there any reason not to fill the iPod hard disk to its full capacity? On PCs, having a full hard disk frequently causes problems running applications, but is this true for iPods as well?
– Bret
A: You’re correct – even on systems with large amounts of physical memory, most operating systems reserve lots of hard disk space as temporary storage (“swap” space), and performance drops dramatically when such space isn’t available for use.
However, to our knowledge, the iPod does not operate this way.
The iPod does actually make use of a similar ‘temporary storage area’, but it’s only between 32 and 64MB, and this process takes place on a dedicated solid-state memory chip, not on the hard drive itself.
We’ve maintained plenty of iPods at as full a capacity as we could get them, and never had any performance issues.
Load it up and enjoy!
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