I've got a 30gb iPod video and it works nicely even tho I am having problems filling it up decently.. I just hate the battery life, around 10 hours with minimal use of song switch, of the screen, light turned down to the max. Its now been 1½ years and I take great care of it. I find it useful as an external HDD because having 40gb HDD and 30gb iPod, well let's say I can backup just about everything, so I have 2 or 3000 pictures on it too.
I also find iRiver is pretty cool, or perhaps other flash based players such as the Sony's who have some pretty durable battery, the only problem is that you don't get the playlist advantage that you get on the iPod.