Are they particularly bad for the ipods? I am having to do them rather frequently with my new 30gb ipod. If my laptop (tibook 667) goes to sleep, i have to do one.

Now, itunes will say it is finished updating but the ipod does not. ( ihave waited thirty minutes for it to stop) This happens when i go to update the playlists or i forgot the ipod is in the dock when i open my laptop. I have to do hard resets after this.

Any suggestions as to why this is happening.

The ipod is set to update certain playlists each time it is connected and everything else is pretty much default. I am using a powered firewire hub as well.