Nicholas Deleon at Motherboard:
“I’ve [refurbished] four iPod Classics and six iPod Minis,” one iPod reseller, Tired8281, told me recently via Reddit private message. “They all sold, and I made a nice profit on all but one.” These refurbished iPods, he explained, are all outfitted with brand new batteries and, depending on the model, either a CompactFlash card or an SD card. Both solutions replace the mechanical hard drives that were originally present on the portable media player, increasing both battery life and the device’s responsiveness since there’s no moving parts to slow things down.
For others like Anthony, a member of a large, invite-only BitTorrent music site who owns a refurbished 240GB model, the appeal of these refurbished, souped-up iPods is clear to diehard music fans who are unwilling to outsource their listening habits to the cloud.
The spinning 160 GB hard drive in my iPod classic is still just fine, but I like that I’ll have options when it does fail.