Back a few years ago I remember there were HUs that came out with internal hard drives. Are there any decent HUs around that are still doing this, or that support reading music off an external drive (I'm not talking about a USB stick here, but a 500gb or a TB drive).
Smokin7
Bumping this thread as I would like to know as well - I am running a Pioneer head unit FH P8000BT. It has the ability to use a USB thumbdrive, and I have used this facility without major problems.
When I just got this HU I ran out and bought a 160Gb Western Digital MyBook external USB drive. But it did not work in this application even after formatting drive to FAT32.
My research suggests that it probably was not getting enough juice from the head unit to actually work - although the white operating LED light would come on.
I have read where external drives that are designed specifically for use with lap top computers may use less power and so might be able to work with the Pioneer. Head unit manual indicates that it will supply 500mA of current to a device. I have read where external hard drive manufacturers do not always have this spec on their website, which further compounds the problem.
But I have yet to read of a successful case where actual brand and model number of external drive is quoted.
When I just got this HU I ran out and bought a 160Gb Western Digital MyBook external USB drive. But it did not work in this application even after formatting drive to FAT32.
My research suggests that it probably was not getting enough juice from the head unit to actually work - although the white operating LED light would come on.
I have read where external drives that are designed specifically for use with lap top computers may use less power and so might be able to work with the Pioneer. Head unit manual indicates that it will supply 500mA of current to a device. I have read where external hard drive manufacturers do not always have this spec on their website, which further compounds the problem.
But I have yet to read of a successful case where actual brand and model number of external drive is quoted.
there are two problems you will face with large external HDDs
1) The current capability from the head unit.. some have power supplies designed just for solid state media (thumb drives, or solid state hard drives)
2) The indexing capability of the head unit. Ie. how many files it can actually index.
When you start looking into it, many USB head units will have limits to how many files it will be able to index off of the drive.. for instance, the alpine touch screen one... the um.. 701... or 501.. wahtever it is... can only handle 20,000 songs I believe. I remember finding a lot that were quite smaller then this...
While this may sound like a lot.. it could be a problem for certain people (such as myself).
The ford sync system suffers from problem 2 in this case... poor indexing.. I think it can only handle about 1000 tracks... which sucks for my friend with that car.. because like me, he has his music on a 500gb external.. so he has to put the files on a thumb drive for the voice recognition to work... yet it does power the external drive just fine....
So as far as my research has gone.. that's the two things to look for.. how much current it can put out, AND how many tracks it can index...
1) The current capability from the head unit.. some have power supplies designed just for solid state media (thumb drives, or solid state hard drives)
2) The indexing capability of the head unit. Ie. how many files it can actually index.
When you start looking into it, many USB head units will have limits to how many files it will be able to index off of the drive.. for instance, the alpine touch screen one... the um.. 701... or 501.. wahtever it is... can only handle 20,000 songs I believe. I remember finding a lot that were quite smaller then this...
While this may sound like a lot.. it could be a problem for certain people (such as myself).
The ford sync system suffers from problem 2 in this case... poor indexing.. I think it can only handle about 1000 tracks... which sucks for my friend with that car.. because like me, he has his music on a 500gb external.. so he has to put the files on a thumb drive for the voice recognition to work... yet it does power the external drive just fine....
So as far as my research has gone.. that's the two things to look for.. how much current it can put out, AND how many tracks it can index...
get a portable drive that was designed with a secondary power line as well. you can pick up a cig usb adapter and run the second line to that for additional power. i use lacie brand drives for this very reason and i love them.
LaCie - Rugged Hard Disk - Hi-Speed USB 2.0
LaCie - Rugged Hard Disk - Hi-Speed USB 2.0
i do too, and with the popularity of mp3 today you would think there would be some options on the market. fwiw when i installed mine i bought a female cig socket from parts express and wired everything to be out of site with the hd on velcro in the glove box. made for very easy removal when i wanted to update the contents.
I was able to run a 500g maxtor 1touch mini off my pioneer premeir 690ub. Had to run a ciggy - usb to give it enough power.
I
I
Your best bet would be to look for portable hard drives that claim to work with only USB power. Some newer mini external drives can do this, but it seems that the largest size is 120GB. Look at the Western Digital Passport series.
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