Connected a 250GB hard drive to my headunit - got a few Q's

MikeHunt79

MikeHunt79

MikeHunt79

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I recently got one of those headunits which has a USB port in the front (FWIW, it's made by silvercrest, the onboard amp is poo, but the pre-outs sound good, so I'm using them).

I normally use a 1gb pendrive filled with MP3's and OGG's, and it works well...

I fancied having a few more songs however, so I threw a 250GB in the boot... filled with around 80GB of music.

It works ok, but the only problem is that the headunit spends 5 minutes scanning thru all the songs everytime I turn it on! This is quite annoying, especially for shorter journeys...

I know there are a few others on here using a USB headunit, and I was wondering if there was any way around this problem? Maybe defrag the HD or something to make it scan faster?

Also, sometimes the songs are out of order, it will often play 5,4,3,2,6,7,8,9,1 for example.... I think it plays the songs in the order they were copied across... I was wondering if there is some utility to modify the dates on the files do that they play in the right order?
 
use a smaller hdd, these headunits will scan the entire drive content first before selecting trcks..... poo but its to do with the limited computing power of a head unit and how it reads file indexing. good idea though chap well done!
 
Tim said:
How long will a HDD last in a boot? Hope you don't have a stiff suspension setup?
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205 with GTI suspension, lowered 60mm.... should be fine. ;)
jimblowscash said:
use a smaller hdd, these headunits will scan the entire drive content first before selecting trcks..... poo but its to do with the limited computing power of a head unit and how it reads file indexing. good idea though chap well done!
Click to expand...
Well the HU takes SD cards also, so I'll use the SD card for shorter journeys, an turn on the HD when I'm going on a longer journey. It seems really weird hearing a HD spin up in yer car... :D
 
Could i just ask how you power it up or a more detailed spec of how you got it all linked together please? I have a Sony HU with digital-in and a USB port and would like to do the same thing.

Thanks.
 
Any idea if it understands playlists?

Might be able to get it to just scan a folder full of playlists if you can stop it searching from the HU.
 
Neo4 said:
Could i just ask how you power it up or a more detailed spec of how you got it all linked together please? I have a Sony HU with digital-in and a USB port and would like to do the same thing.

Thanks.
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First of all, it might be worth looking into one of those self powered 2.5" USB hard drives, as if they work then things would be a lot easier.

Right, where shall I start... The first challenge is powering a 3.5" HD from 12V DC instead of 230V AC. I must warn you this is rather bodgetastic, as I simply used bits I had lying around...

Now, ConfusedTA may have heard of this PSU, but I had all the bits to build a "Sproggy" PSU... (A few years ago for my dissertation, I put PC in my car and wrote some software for it, and I still have bits leftover). Basically, a sproggy is a 60W DC - DC PSU, designed to power low-end PC's in cars. Now, I could use the 12V and 5V rails from this PSU for my HD... I simply cut the trace on the PCB so the 3.3v section doesn't power up, as a 3.5" HD only needs 12v and 5v. Now this PSU is overkill really, as my HD only needs 5W or so... so I suggest picking up something premade, I'm sure there are supplies available (tho I haven't checked myself), instead of building a Sproggy PSU(some of the parts are a PITA to get hold of).

I used a 3.5" external USB enclosure, and bolted it to a box that I keep in my boot to hold tools... I then wired up the sproggy PSU, and tested it out with an old 1gb HD:

imgp0662kz8.jpg

I used an molex connectors from the battery for the power and relay wires, so I could easily remove it from the car:
imgp0661sb1.jpg


It didn't work at first, but I had to short pin 14 to fool the PSU to power up without a motherboard connected...

Now I know it works, I mounted the PSU to the enclosure, then I used a cut up poster tube to protect the PSU from flying tools if I ever need to do an emergency stop. :D

imgp0663du9.jpg


That's all the pics I have I'm afraid... I didn't take any when installing it in the car as it was so bloody cold I wanted to do it ASAP! Anyway, I'll try to describe what I did...

First of all, I wired the power into the boot... This was pretty easy, as I already had power run thru to the boot for my amp, and the extra load from the HD wouldn't matter as it only pulls 0.5A (the same as a sidelight bulb).

I also had to mount a switch in my dash, and run another cable thru to the boot, this switch simply gives 12v to the "remote" cable on the PSU, and simply turns it no and off (exactly like the remote wire on an amp).

Again I tested this with an old 1GB hd, and it turns on and off perfectly fine in the car, dispute it being near freezing!

The hard part is now over, I simply run a 2 metre A-B USB cable from the boot to my glovebox... It was more than long enough (for my 205 at least). I tried it out again with my 1GB hard drive, which had a few albums on it, and it worked!

I then took the box back in the house, dismantled the enclosure, replaced the 1GB HD with a 250GB one, connected it up to the computer, and proceeded to copy 80GB of MP3's and OGG's into the HD... took it out, found it didn't work, cursed and swore, took it back in the house, reformatted it as FAT32 (not NTFS :o), copied over the 80GB of music again, took it back out to the car, connected it all up, and it worked (after about 5 minutes of scanning thru all the songs)...

Pros: I now have over 10000 songs to choose from.

Cons: It takes around 5 mins for the HU to go thru all the songs, and there is a pop thru the speakers when I turn the HD on (I think this is due to the relay... I can probably sort this with better speaker wire routing).

I hope this covers it... I've been putting it off for a while, but I'm glad I finally got around to doing it... It can be quite satisfying connecting it all up and it works. :cool:

EDIT: I'll have to look into playlists... my HU can be quite quirky about certain things...
 
Very informative,thankyou. Will give this a go at some stage as my usb MP3 player looks ugly sticking out of my HU.
 
My expensive JVC AVX33 is the bloody same, so im using my USB stick more than the drive,fortunately i only use a 60gb drive, it still takes a minute or so to scan tho, annoyingly i cant have video and music on the same drive, it will only play the music, so i have 2 self powered enclosures with lappy drives kicking around the car :(
 
MikeHunt79 said:
Now, ConfusedTA may have heard of this PSU, but I had all the bits to build a "Sproggy" PSU...
Click to expand...

Gosh, that is a blast-from-the-past!! ;)

Nowadays you can get pre-built in-car PSU's - if you use an external enclosure, they usually only need a 12V input - and you can get regulated 12V supplies that do the job. Although the car is "12V" - it actually fluctuates anywhere between ~8-15V at any time - so can quite easily kill things like HDDs!
 
wohoo said:
My expensive JVC AVX33 is the bloody same, so im using my USB stick more than the drive,fortunately i only use a 60gb drive, it still takes a minute or so to scan tho, annoyingly i cant have video and music on the same drive, it will only play the music, so i have 2 self powered enclosures with lappy drives kicking around the car :(
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Hmm, it a shame these HU's don't save a database file to the HD for quicker startup... I wonder if defragging would help speed things up a little?
ConfusedTA said:
Gosh, that is a blast-from-the-past!! ;)

Nowadays you can get pre-built in-car PSU's - if you use an external enclosure, they usually only need a 12V input - and you can get regulated 12V supplies that do the job. Although the car is "12V" - it actually fluctuates anywhere between ~8-15V at any time - so can quite easily kill things like HDDs!
Click to expand...
I've lost a 30GB back in the day doing exactly that, I had regulated 5v, but used 12v straight from the battery, and the HD didn't last long... I think a had a 166MHz (MMX!) lappy running MPXPLAY at the time... After the death of this HD, I started to acquire sproggy bits. :)

I guess if I was to do it again (sans sproggy), a regulated 12v supply would be a lot easier...

Anyway, I'm gonna try taking a laptop into my car today, and try defragging the 250gb HD, and see if this will make startup any faster... :)
 
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