read some posts about this far with no clear answers,

but has anyone hooked up an external hd with mp3s on it to the usb port on the 09 head unit and it worked?

i want to try this but dont have an external hd to test with and dont want to spend the cash if it doesnt actually work.

if it does work that would be awesome. hooking up like a 160 gb hd and being able to put every single song i have instead of god damn cds.

i would get an ipod but i know i would never listen to it outside my car, i just use a little method to strip the drm off my itunes music and put it on my phone, and like it costs 150 for a new 8gb nano, which is nothing compared to a full blown hard drive.

 

ipod classic 120gb 226 bucks.

the usb option is only 100 bucks, really no excuse to pass on it

 

I just bought a 4 gig Sony flash drive for $15 on sale. I've seen 8 gig flash drives for $25 or so. You could probably put close to 1,000 mp3 files on the 8 gig drive. But, if you really want to try a harddrive, look at my thread (see link). Cyrusthevirus posted that he had a HDD. One of the later posts explains you need to format it to fat32 and you might need an external power source.

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/08-10-ss-turbocharged-general-discussion-152/flash-drive-usb-port-2009-ss-tc-152045/

 

I would assume a 2.5 inch drive at 4-5k rpm, would work fine. The usb should give it enough power...

 

I wondered about that too. Makes sense a laptop harddrive would probably work.

 

ok let me clarify, i do not want an ipod. i can get a laptop hd for free, ide or sata hookup, just need to get an external hookup for it, alot less expensive than any ipod.

i already have the usb option on my car. i bought a brand new 09 ss/tc with all the options sans the RPD considering they are on mega hold right now.

does anyone know, effectively, that any sort of external hd setup will work with the usb port?
it seems to me like it would from what ive seen, so i guess im just going to spend the money and give it a shot.

o ya and i already have a 4gb usb stick, but i have about 20 gigs worth of music and thats been growing gradually so i feel having a hard drive hookup would be a better plan.

plus with the hard drive i have more space to up the quality of the music.

 

Just an FYI Its not good for Harddrives to get bumped around because with the heads being so close to the platter if you hit a bump and they crash against each other you might as well say bye bye data. I work for the state police in the IT section and we replace a ton of HD's out of laptops that are in the cruisers. If you are wanting an external hard drive for your car by all means go with a Solid State drive.

 

i already have an idea on mounting. i work in IT myself so im well aware of the risks.

solid state drive would be nice, expensive though.

 

works, just have to format the hard drive to fat32.

 

OCZ 16gb USB2.0 flash, 16 after rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227333

 

I hooked my 50 gig external to it and it will only read like 20-30 0f the folders out of 300 or so on the HD. Not sure why but I can't access all of the songs on it. It may be that the head unit has a small memory in which it can only access so many files at one time.

 

that blows

 

here is a video from you tube showing some guy using the usb port.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGO-EVMtjjc

 

If you don't do folders, I'm sure it would read all your files up to.. I think 5000?

 

That would be like having a gigantic Ipod shuffle. Kind of a bitch to pinpoint a single song you want to listen to.

 

I have an 80 gig ipod. That should be good for a road trip or two!

 

Just tested with a Seagate Freeagent. It worked. The drive had things other than music on it so I didn't delve too deep, but yes it worked (usb 2.0 interface).

 

i have a 250gb external hook up to mine and the cord run between the panels and the drive is in the box where the trunk button is so its out of the way and it plays great, folders and all

 

If you want cheap with a lot of storage just buy that normal HDD and buy a box for it and an adaptor to make it external. I'm pretty sure newegg carries some HDD cases for pretty cheap. Or you could always just use a radio shack project box.

 

All a MP3 player consists of is a flash or HD storage device with a codec processor, video processor with screen and audio outputs. With that said, any storage device you put music onto including flash drives or hard drives should be able to be plugged in and work just fine.

 

o for the guy that mentioned he couldnt access all his songs, the usb port only reads mp3 and wma audio files, so you might have a bunch of music thats in a different format