Will it play music from an external hdd? I have a WD 250gb usb powered hdd. i want to buy THIS one for the front usb, but dont want to waste my money if it doesnt. may pay a little more and get the back usb one. but with that one, will the usb cable be long enough to stick out to have full access?LINK

 

someone here has to at least have a usb cd player, will it work?

 

i have a DEH with the usb on the back, the cable is plenty long, it sits in my glove box, can't help you with the external hard drive though, never had to test it, my iPod is just hooked directly to it

 

ah glove box is a great idea....i wish there was a way to test before i buy it

 

No it won't work straight up, the usb from the headunit doesn't supply enough power to spin the hard drive. Is it one of the ones with 2 USB plugs coming off of the cable that plugs in the HD itself? If so you can get one of the 12v to 5v USB converters and wire it up that way. Some guys on AVIC411.com have done it that way, they've had problems getting it to read more than 40 gigs though

 

I too cant tell you about hard drives..but it works perfectly with a flash based usb memory stick using the usb port thats on the back(mine is older so it doesnt have a front one). I'm currently using an 8gb kingston that I leave in the truck hooked up all the time except when loading new music

 

works on my pioneer deh with my blackberry and 8g flash drive

 

Guys a flash drive and external hard drive are 2 totally different things

 

i know that i was just saying what ive used on mine.

 

I'd actually suggest buying yourself a nice flash drive for truck use. Its more likely to last as it doesn't have moving parts like the HD which are susceptible to road bumps/heat causing an early death. A lot smaller too

Last I checked a kingston brand 32gb could be had for around $60.

 

hm....ill probably end up buying a usb flash drive if my zune or 250gb hdd dont work.

 

dont you have an Ipod?

 

zune will not work already tried man figured id save you the hassle

 

yeah If i recall correctly on my unit I think it mentioned something about that in the user manual. Not sure why maybe pioneer or m$ was being lazy or pioneer secretly hates m$

 

Just get a USB stick, here in Canada you can get a 4gb for around $10.00 and the 8-16gb are starting to drop in price. But I have around 1000 songs on my computer and it only takes up about 3 gbs.

 

yeah but what sucks is i wanted to access all 28gb of my music haha. and wanted to add a bunch more since ive decided to just make my external just music. bro and i are going to go to this place tomorrow hopefully, and test out my hdd with their displays and all. and i already figured my zune wouldnt work since everyone has become an ipod owner. doesn't hurt to try it.

 

the glove box is the best place for and external HD I think its a great idea, just need to splice some wires for power to the HD... I'm sure squad cars are setup with them... you shouldn't have much of a problem with the vibrations if you make a lil padded case for it to sit in...

 

Also if your HD is anything like mine you'll need to give it a good minute to boot up and get up to speed. But I was thinking won't you have problems with the disk in it since I've been told never to move a computer when it's on since the HD might get damaged, though you can use laptops in cars but they might have something built in so they don't get damaged so at least make sure the HD is secure in the glove box or where ever your putting it so it doesn't get thrown around if you hit some big bumps or go wheelin'.

 

yah ur external will get f'd up over time in a vehicle. Solid state harddrives are better to use. They do make large SSDs though that aren't too expensive.

 

well i have a 1tb external at home now and have had this 250gb for 2 years now. its not my main anymore, and is just used for quick transfers and all between pcs. im yet to buy a flash drive. and i dunno if id buy a solid state right now, too expensive. though they are awesome drives. i wouldnt use it for vehicle use.

 

Honestly, just buy an Ipod.. Lol. You'll never go back after, plus the music control on the Pioneer decks is so over rated and hard to use cause it'll take you ages to go through all the songs.

 

i was thinkin about it but meh, already got an mp3 player. have had my zune since it first came out. if they were cheap, then i wouldnt mind gettin a 80gb-120gb

 

You want a deck that you're going to play digital media with get the IDA X-100. I had one before my F700bt and it was awesome. Color screen and what not and it displays library's very nice. I still have mine sitting in a box lol.