Can a USB on head units run external hard drives??

[azimuth 5,000+ posts]

this is one of the best ideas ever created to integrate with a head unit. will they read video off the hard drive as well? assuming they are in the correct compressed format of course.

 

[lillitnn92 10+ year member]

yup //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Any drives that are formatted with NTFS will have to be reformatted to work with a HU, I really really doubt any HU can read the NTFS format

i swear i read that it handled NTFS and FAT32, so that's why i didn't worry about it. someone mentioned it at another place, so i tried it and ta da!! only problem is you can't format FAT32 in more than 32gig partitions...well within XP you can't. you can however download a nice little utility like CompuApps Swissknife and it will format the whole drive in FAT32. so i'm all set, 40gig drive with 7gigs to spare, i should be fine for a while. and most importantly no additional power source!!

 

[DownSouth954 10+ year member]

which model is that excelon?

I have the KDC-X590... Bought it when it first came out. You can get it for cheap nowadays.

The newer HU's I'm looking at now lack USB support though //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[IonSQL 10+ year member]

The problem with the FAT32 file system is that it has a 4GB file size limit... so if you have large videos (I haven't tried videos on mine yet, but I assume they would work also), you wouldn't be able to put them onto the drive.

 

[melnlovr911 10+ year member]

I have a question similar to this.... Will an iphone charge off a deck with a usb port?

 

[Kil4Thril 10+ year member]

I have a question similar to this.... Will an iphone charge off a deck with a usb port?

Yes, but the only time I tried it, the deck had to be turned on (not just the car). This was a Jensen, others may differ.

 

[DownSouth954 10+ year member]

I have a question similar to this.... Will an iphone charge off a deck with a usb port?

I can charge my Pocket PC off my headunit but unfortunately I have to sacrifice listening to music in doing so //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/redface.gif.62fdbfe1a101588a808c4cff71bcb942.gif

 

[BassAddictJ 5,000+ posts]

lol, and yet, none of that actually made any sense!
firstly, USB ports are 5 volts... and the rest of that post? well, I'll just let it go //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

made sense to me. the voltage is going to be constant to all the other usb ports in the circuit now.

 

[Kil4Thril 10+ year member]

made sense to me. the voltage is going to be constant to all the other usb ports in the circuit now.

Yep, it's the possible amperage at each branch that may suffer.

 

[scals37 10+ year member]

I have the KDC-X590... Bought it when it first came out. You can get it for cheap nowadays.
The newer HU's I'm looking at now lack USB support though //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

do you know that much about the excelons... i want one with good ipod interface or one that runs an external hard drive like that...