It looks like from the manual, that I should be able to do this. The drive is a Windows formatted drive with up to two levels of folders with standard MP3 files ripped from CDs. When I hook up the drive to the USB port, it says there are no files present. Anyone ever have any luck with this?

 

Formatted how? NTFS? or FAT32? FIT only reads FAT32 drives. Also, what kind of drive is it? some USB HDD's require additional power.

~SB

 

I thought the user manual recommend AGAINST external hard drives, only solid state jump drives. And I think there might be a size limit on those. I occasionally have to power cycle the stereo to get it to accept my 32GB jump drive.

 

I was able to do this with my western digital passport hard drive (320GB) and it worked perfectly. all i hat to do was create a 32GB FAT32 partition at the beginning of the drive that the stereo could read.

 

I have a 4GB thumb drive, and I already hate trying to cycle thru all of the folders and songs to find what I want. I couldn't imagine having any more of my music on one drive.

I think I may even buy a few smaller thrumb drives for cheap, and put a different genre on each, just to make it easier to find what I want.

 

I can put only 8GB SD card into PCMCIA card that insert into NAV unit. It does not take 16GB SD.

 

I use a 16gb thumb drive with all my music in WMA format. It can be a pain scrolling thru it all, so I usually set up for random play & let it go.

 

two_way_mirror,
That's the same drive I am trying to use. So you partitioned it with 2 partitions? The first being 32GB? Is the remaining 290GB visible by the stereo or only the 32GB partition?

 

Creating a 32GB partition worked, but obviously is a waste of a larger HD. Anyone know what the limit is? I'm going to try it again with a 64GB partition and see if that works...

 

I think others have successfully had 500gb hard drives that work. it just has to be formatted FAT32.

On a similar note. Are you really going to try and navigate 320GB of music using the Stock Head unit? It's long enough navigating through less than 8GB of music let alone 100, 200, or more.

~SB

 

Using a mechanical hard disk in a car is a bad idea. If you study up on what goes on inside a drive you'll see that the spinning disc and precision head units work at incredibly close and accurate tolerances that aren't designed to work in bumpy or shock conditions. Using a mechanical disk drive that way will just end with problems. Stick with flash media.

 

to a certain degree, yes... and no...

Hard drives, especially portable ones, have a things that help compensate for this. The housing on a decent HDD usually has some kind of shock absorbtion. also, the head mechanism has an auto-park feature for sudden shock. the head will park itself before it has the chance to touch one of the platters. all hard drives today also have built in Cache so the data being accessed is actually in the Cache. The stereo requests the file, as the first part of the file is being read, the rest of the file is moved into cache and the stereo reads the rest of the file from the cache so the disk is no longer being accessed (the head is parked). This all happens in a fraction of a second for normal sized MP3 files. if the file is bigger than the cache, the cache will be updated as needed from the disc. Many auto manufacturers are now including Hard drives and not SSD (solid state drives) into their navigation systems and while I'm sure those drives are designed for a more rugged environment, the technology is essentially the same.

That said, some sort of solid state media will be more reliable and rugged than a spinning disc. Flash Drives etc... are much less prone to issues with temperatures as well so during the summer & winter, you can leave them in the car which is less advisable for a hard drive (especially a black car with black interior on toasty days).

I'd recommend a flash drive (16GB max) and put your favorite music on that. Navigation of so many files would be my pet peeve.

~SB

 

This is what I'm using, I highly recommend it:
Newegg.com - Kingston DataTraveler R500 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model DTR500/16GB

 

I am using a cheap ipod with 8 GB which I found, had an advantage over static flash drive or jump drive in terms of music quality for bass and treble.

The ipod has an internal bass booster and treble booster which I set to maximum. The ipod onboard equalizer acts as a "pre-amp" to shape the sound with deeper bass and clearer treble before sending the signal to the FIT's amp via the USB.

The ipod derived its power from the FIT's usb and I can use the FIT radio dashboard to control some main functions of the ipod such as on off switch, volume etc. I hid the ipod in the glove compartment and just leave it there until I need to update the songs

I could hear the difference right away.. the bass is deeper, more prononce with clearer treble from the ipod...... I never switch back to jump drive or flash drive ever since.