[michaelsanford]

PS I would also advise that you work on your iPod's files on the computer's hard disk, and them move them back to the iPod -- don't work directly off your iPod.

It's probably not a really big deal, but I did a few tests myself, working directly off my iPod. With constant disk access it gets hot, and I don't mean warm, I mean H O T. That's probably not a good thing.

Keep in mind the iPod isn't designed as an external hard disk (like for example a LaCie FW HD would be), it's only for storing music and some user data (and some backups if you want). All of that involves minimal, infrequent writes to the iPod's hard disk, which by the way isn't even ventilated.