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      08-15-2011, 08:46 PM   #1
PGB
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USB and portable HDD?

Hi, just ordered my X3 35i today. Very excited.

Just wondering if anyone has tried plugging a 2.5 HDD into the USB port for listening to music. Does it put out enough power to run a drive and is the unit able to navigate the folder structure.

I am getting the upgraded Hifi unit.

Cheers,
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      08-15-2011, 09:25 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PGB View Post
Hi, just ordered my X3 35i today. Very excited.

Just wondering if anyone has tried plugging a 2.5 HDD into the USB port for listening to music. Does it put out enough power to run a drive and is the unit able to navigate the folder structure.

I am getting the upgraded Hifi unit.

Cheers,
On my m3 it always had issues with the 2.5" drives
Not enougH power
It worked fine with the samsung s1 drives, since those are 1.8" drives.
And now I'm using a 128gb SSD drive in a 2.5" enclosure
Much faster to navigate than the regular drives
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      08-15-2011, 09:37 PM   #3
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I am using a 500GB 2.5'' portable drive with no problem. I agree that sometime to generate the list of album, it can take a few seconds but not an issue for me.
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      08-16-2011, 04:41 AM   #4
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@frankwin:
is there a limited number of files?
How many files do you have on your HDD?
Do you use a special HDD format, like FAT32?
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      08-16-2011, 07:12 AM   #5
PGB
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Thanks

Looking forward to having my whole music collection with me!
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      08-16-2011, 07:45 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andraxxx View Post
@frankwin:
is there a limited number of files?
How many files do you have on your HDD?
Do you use a special HDD format, like FAT32?
So far I have around 5000 files in the directory structure, I don't see why there would be a limit. My drive is FAT32. I still need to rip about 100 old CDs so I will see in the future how it handle it.

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Originally Posted by PGB View Post
Looking forward to having my whole music collection with me!
I often listen to the same music but I enjoy the power of been able to listen to any music I have
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      08-16-2011, 08:35 AM   #7
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From the X3 manual:

"Number of tracks

Information from up to four USB devices or for
approx. 16,000 or 26,000* tracks can be stored
in the vehicle. If a fifth device is connected or if
more than 16000 or 26000* tracks are stored,
information on existing tracks may be deleted."

Not really sure what that means though...
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      08-16-2011, 09:20 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JReed View Post
From the X3 manual:

"Number of tracks

Information from up to four USB devices or for
approx. 16,000 or 26,000* tracks can be stored
in the vehicle. If a fifth device is connected or if
more than 16000 or 26000* tracks are stored,
information on existing tracks may be deleted."

Not really sure what that means though...
This relates to the indexing. The first time you plug in a USB device it has to index everything so that next time you use it, it's faster to look up songs. If you have too many files across multiple devices it can't create an index big enough to remember them all
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      08-16-2011, 09:33 AM   #9
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So it sounds to me that you wouldn't effectively be able to use a HDD with more than 26K songs. I mean you could put it on shuffle and just have it play through, but searching wouldn't work properly and some songs would just show up as "Track01" or some variation. Has anyone tried using a huge HDD with more than 26K songs?
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      08-16-2011, 10:12 AM   #10
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Seriously, 26000 songs?? Legal songs? This is about 2000 CDs I doubt someone normal would be be limited by that in a car... This like any computer, especially 32 bits addressing 4GB.
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      08-16-2011, 10:30 AM   #11
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Actually that's a really good point... I'm used to bumping up against limits because I have a pretty sizable lossless library. But there's no way I'm going to hit the track # limit. Where would someone even get 26K illegal songs?
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      08-16-2011, 01:11 PM   #12
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Does it reindex every time you start the car and change to use the USB port?

Quote:
Originally Posted by sfax View Post
This relates to the indexing. The first time you plug in a USB device it has to index everything so that next time you use it, it's faster to look up songs. If you have too many files across multiple devices it can't create an index big enough to remember them all
Or does it keep the index once loaded. I'm thinking that once I plug it in it'll be staying in the car indefinitely.

I don't think I'll have to worry about more than 26K songs.
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      08-16-2011, 02:38 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PGB View Post
Or does it keep the index once loaded. I'm thinking that once I plug it in it'll be staying in the car indefinitely.

I don't think I'll have to worry about more than 26K songs.
The indexes are stored so even when you plug in something else and then put the original device back in, it's "remembered". The index is only fully built first time. Not sure exactly how this process works if you plug in a USB device which you have added songs to since it was last plugged in but I've done this before and not noticed any delay (using a 32GB flash stick)

There is some more info here:

http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=529599
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      08-16-2011, 04:19 PM   #14
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Many thanks



Quote:
Originally Posted by sfax View Post
The indexes are stored so even when you plug in something else and then put the original device back in, it's "remembered". The index is only fully built first time. Not sure exactly how this process works if you plug in a USB device which you have added songs to since it was last plugged in but I've done this before and not noticed any delay (using a 32GB flash stick)

There is some more info here:

http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=529599
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