Head Units and External Hard Drives

[Kil4Thril 10+ year member]

I have a Kenwood 7019 that I will be installing a HDD in the next week or 2 (time dependent) I ordered a panel mount USB to go in my console, along with a cigarette-lighter USB charging plug (hacked and permanently mounted). I'll be testing it with a 40GB 2.5" drive I had laying around, and I'll order a bigger one if all works out well.

Here's a link to that USB header if anyone wants one. Mine should be here Monday, so hold off and I'll let you guys know if it's any good.:

http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=7299

 

[MyPoison1 10+ year member]

Hello everyone,

Can I charge my Sony cell phone using the usb on a head unit? Just wondering since I looking for one to buy.

thanks.

 

[Kai Winters 10+ year member]

I reformatted my WD Passport to FAT32 and the Alpine x001 reads it perfectly. Wow all my songs in varied ways...favorites hard/lite/oldies folders, complete cd and all my Old Time Radio programs only fill 42 gb. Very very nice.

 

[MyPoison1 10+ year member]

I reformatted my WD Passport to FAT32 and the Alpine x001 reads it perfectly. Wow all my songs in varied ways...favorites hard/lite/oldies folders, complete cd and all my Old Time Radio programs only fill 42 gb. Very very nice.

Cool!

 

[blazeplacid 10+ year member]

pioneer manual for the 6000ub says 250gb max

 

[yuske 10+ year member]

go here

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4518225#post4518225

 

[blazeplacid 10+ year member]

its nice and small sure but 60gb is about 1/3 of my music =)

you can get a 120 gb from best buy for $100 or less

 

[Kai Winters 10+ year member]

I got my 160gb WD Passport for $99 at Staples and you can now get a 320gb for around $120.

 

[maxmodder 10+ year member]

Hey everyone! First post! I have the pioneer 6900UB as well. I tried using a 250GB WD passport #WD2500XMSA-00 with about 80GB of music on it and it just hangs at the "reading format" stage. The USB cable that came with this WD passport is 18 inches long. I hooked that directly into the back of the 6 inch usb input coming out the back of the head unit with no luck. (total cord length = 2 feet)

I then bought a vector 100 watt microslim power inverter with USB charging port from best buy along with a USB Y cable (two male USB A and a male 5 pin mini A) from Radio Shack. I tried hooking up the harddrive by that method, and it also hangs at the "reading format" stage. I let it sit there for 15 minutes before unhooking it. Hard drive light comes on.

The drive says that it's partioned for FAT32 out of the box, and that's what the pie chart said when I when I right clicked on the drive letter. I'm going to get a USB to mini 5 pin converter (less than an inch long) and try that both with and without the power supply and with only a couple of mp3's on the HD. If that doesn't work, then does anyone have any other suggestions?

Anyone successfully get a WD passport to work without the need for an external power supply?

 

[mdillon 10+ year member]

i would run external power on all drives larger than 60gb. when they get hot they draw more current. you wouldnt run a 30 amp alt and 8 gauge power wire to a 2kw amp, so why would you starve your hdd's? spend tha dough on the power supplies.btw. i stumbled onto this thread. it had all the info i was looking for. thanks everyone for postin your info

 

[maxmodder 10+ year member]

Ok, I got my white 250GB WD passport hooked up to the pioneer 6900UB with the use of an external power supply. My collection is approx 100GB, with 22000 songs. It is organized on my home PC by Artist/Album/Song. First, I loaded only artists starting with A-I, and it took about 5 minutes to read. Then I loaded A-F, and it took 2 mintues to read. I put artists begining with A through P on it, and it just hung at the "reading format" for 15 minutes plug. I didn't bother to see how long it would take. Apparently, the drive is having a hard time sorting though everything. I need for it to read very quickly, like my 30GB ipod. Other than restructuring it so that it's done by Artist-Album/Song rather than artist/album/song (removing a level of folders) is there anything that can be done to make it load quicker? I'm begining to think this has nothing to do with my choice of HD, but rather the file/folder structure. Would reformatting the hard drive into 3 smaller partions be the better route to go, only putting the 100 GB on the last partition? My guess is that in it's current file format, it would take 30 min to scan all 100GB. Anything over 1 minute is not acceptable. The head unit reads 30GB of music on an ipod in under 10 sec, and 30GB of music on this hard drive in 7-10 minutes.

For you guys with 60 GB worth of music or more and your music setup in Artist/Album/Song format, how long is it taking for your head unit to read the external hard drive?