[GeriFix]

^^too lazy to quote, but yes.

[fucema]

Originally Posted by Nucking Futs!

Well, I was debating between a flash drive (Corsair 32gb Voyager) or a HDD (60 gb) since they're roughly the same price here in the states ($110-$130 USD). I only have ~8gb worth of music so that 80gb limit won't affect me. Thx for the info.

Does anybody know if the Lacie or Apricorn HDD will fit in that underside armrest pouch?

I don't know about the Lacie, but the Apricorn I have has a very short cable so it will not reach from the pouch. It's such a small drive however, that I just place it flat inside the armrest, wherever is convenient.

It does have the option to attach an extender cable, but I have not tried it. IIRC, the extender cable comes with the harddrive also.

Cheers!

[Nucking Futs!]

Originally Posted by fucema

I don't know about the Lacie, but the Apricorn I have has a very short cable so it will not reach from the pouch. It's such a small drive however, that I just place it flat inside the armrest, wherever is convenient.

It does have the option to attach an extender cable, but I have not tried it. IIRC, the extender cable comes with the harddrive also.

Cheers!

Thx for the info.

[AWD Addict]

[deleted]

repeat post

[highendsyl]

Yesterday I received my new 318d. Business Navi, Sportchairs, Xenon etc.etc.etc. Black Saphire Metallic

Of course with 6FL USB.

Instantly connected my 60gb 1.8" Toshiba USB drive (with 58gb MP3 on it). Within 20 seconds music. All functions work: Tracklist, Artist, Albums, Songs. Skip from one song to another within 1 second. Sound Quality excellent, I only use 320 kbs MP3. I use the standard cable with is supplied with the drive. No delay what so ever.

http://www.poweroneurope.eu/products_3.html

Hope this helps you in selecting your drive.

[jtmccabe]

Originally Posted by highendsyl

Yesterday I received my new 318d. Business Navi, Sportchairs, Xenon etc.etc.etc. Black Saphire Metallic

Of course with 6FL USB.

Instantly connected my 60gb 1.8" Toshiba USB drive (with 58gb MP3 on it). Within 20 seconds music. All functions work: Tracklist, Artist, Albums, Songs. Skip from one song to another within 1 second. Sound Quality excellent, I only use 320 kbs MP3. I use the standard cable with is supplied with the drive. No delay what so ever.

http://www.poweroneurope.eu/products_3.html

Hope this helps you in selecting your drive.

Thanks for the info. Can you give us the model number?

[highendsyl]

You mean this:

My Portable Peripherals
Case-USB218-60-BL
Black
60 GB
USB Bus Powered Device
1.8" harddisk
4200 RPM
All (standard FAT32)
59 x 10 x 96 mm
106 g

http://www.poweroneurope.eu/products_3_en.html

[mrvuml]

Its consistency thats important, the need for the drive to start up everythime you get in the car. I had a 60GB WD Passport that would only work about 50% of the time.

[dinkoh]

Originally Posted by mrvuml

Its consistency thats important, the need for the drive to start up everythime you get in the car. I had a 60GB WD Passport that would only work about 50% of the time.

I couldn't agree more.

I have the IOMEGA HDD that works ~80% of the time. I think it has something to do with the opening the trunk when I park my car.

It's super annoying to reset the HDD. I want it working 100% of the time.

[fucema]

Originally Posted by dinkoh

I couldn't agree more.

I have the IOMEGA HDD that works ~80% of the time. I think it has something to do with the opening the trunk when I park my car.

It's super annoying to reset the HDD. I want it working 100% of the time.

My Apricorn drive is still 100%. Has not failed to start and play music properly since the day I started using it. It's been at least 2 months with near constant daily use to and from work. Unlike the previous drives I had (Iomega, Toshiba, Hitachi -- all 4200RPM drives) the Apricorn has been rock solid and reliable.

[mrvuml]

Originally Posted by fucema

My Apricorn drive is still 100%. Has not failed to start and play music properly since the day I started using it. It's been at least 2 months with near constant daily use to and from work. Unlike the previous drives I had (Iomega, Toshiba, Hitachi -- all 4200RPM drives) the Apricorn has been rock solid and reliable.

What is the make/model # of your Apricorn drive? I gave up on the WD Passport drive and am using a 8GB Sandisk USB flash drive but its not big enough so I'll upgrade to either a 16BG USB flash drive (and fill it up in no time) or a more reliable hard drive.

[highendsyl]

up to now everytime within seconds music. No problem. So 100% in the first 3 days. However after unplugging the songs, artist, playlists etc. take a long time to get back again.

But from directory instantly music.

PS. I have also got recycle#bin as directory. Anyone suggestion to get rid of this?

[fucema]

Originally Posted by highendsyl

up to now everytime within seconds music. No problem. So 100% in the first 3 days. However after unplugging the songs, artist, playlists etc. take a long time to get back again.

But from directory instantly music.

PS. I have also got recycle#bin as directory. Anyone suggestion to get rid of this?

Disable it using standard windows configuration settings while the drive is connected to your computer (ala right click trash can, edit settings, disable recycle bin for the portable drive, etc).

You can also disable system restore and delete the hidden system folder too.

The recycle bin is catch for some people I think -- when they think they've deleted the song but only moved it into the recycle bin, and they get confused as to why it still plays and displays in their car.

[fucema]

Originally Posted by mrvuml

What is the make/model # of your Apricorn drive? I gave up on the WD Passport drive and am using a 8GB Sandisk USB flash drive but its not big enough so I'll upgrade to either a 16BG USB flash drive (and fill it up in no time) or a more reliable hard drive.

I tried several passports and none of them would even start properly for me.

The part number and link to newegg for the Apricorn drive is posted in an earlier reply in this thread. I'm kind of too drunk too look for it at the moment though. Do a search!

[GraemeSmith]

Thanks to this post I got a clue now here are my observations (we are a computer IT shop). Firstly - my testing is on my BMW X5 with 2008 USB connector and whatever (presumably) reasonably up to date software came with it. But these are good computing principals which should help EVERYONE regardless of model and drive used. If nothing else - if you have a working setup - I think this will give you a faster and better working setup.

In THIS ORDER (important to minimize rework):


1. Drive size limitations
-------------------------

Avoid Physical Hard Drives bigger than 120Gb. This because for those of you copying over from Windows - you will hit other issues at 127Gb - so avoid them by keeping the drive smaller. There may also be other power related issues but these are a lot less important than the Windows / 127Gb issues.

Lower spin speeds like 4200rpm use less power and leave more available for the USB signalling voltage which you want to maximise.

Power boosters - nothing wrong with them if it helps you over the hump to get it going.

A QUALITY low loss cable is more important than a short cable. Quality and short is the best of all. Lots of metal in the fatter cable means lower losses. Cheap thin cables have higher resistance and higher losses.



2. Format as FAT32
-------------------

You MUST use the FAT32 format on your hard drive. Most drives at the store in the last year are now actually formatted in NTFS. You are going to hit all sorts of trouble trying to get this to work. If you want to know why go read the history of the format on Wikipedia but in essence FAT is used to ensure maximum cross platform compatibility. Your car is LOOKING for a FAT32 drive.

Windows will not format a FAT32 drive over 32Gb though the protocol is good to 8Tb. So use a third party utility like SwissArmyKnife:

http://www.compuapps.com/download/Sw...swissknife.htm

Though not "rated" for Windows Vista - it does work on Vista - Click your way through User Account Control warnings and when it falls over at the end of the format - don't worry - unplug and replug your drive and it will work.

Perhaps NTFS might work in certain circumstances but I can think of a significant number of geek reasons why not - so just format at FAT 32 and move on to the next step.


3. Check Drive for Errors
--------------------------

Check the Disk for errors to make sure it is completely readable. All hard drives have bad clusters and FAT32 is prone to failing drive reads if hitting bad storage clusters. For old time Geeks - run CHKDSK on the drive. For Windows right click the drive - Properties - Tools - Error Check - Check both little boxes and then give it an hour to analyze and mark up the good parts of the disk. Now copy one music file to the drive and test it in the car. If it reads - you should be all set. If it does NOT - don't waste any more time. Go get and try another model of drive and start again at point 1.



4. Copy Files
--------------

Copy your files to the drive. BMW suggest the car will max out at 20,000 tracks. That is sort of true. It is a combination of car memory / file name lengths/ number of files / speed of drive. Like gas consumption - "your mileage may vary". Use the number as a guide to start with, go low - 15,000 tracks or less - and work your way up after.



5. Get rid of hidden files
---------------------------

If you copy files by dragging and dropping from Windows (and computers with Windows Media Player especially)
to your hard drive you are going to copy over a pile of junk that is not needed and that will only slow down the hard drive access while the car reads and ignores so - search the DRIVE after copying over for all instances of these HIDDEN files:

DESKTOP.INI
THUMBS.DB
*.JPG (album cover pictures)

and delete these files. You will get a system file warning when you do this and you can safely OK your way past it and delete the files - on your portable hard drive - NOT on your computer.

This will free up hard drive space and speed directory reading. It will also leave lots of little empty spaces on the drive so ......


6. Get rid of empty folders
----------------------------

If you allow your favorite music software to reorder your music files - the software has a habit of leaving empty folders around - a waste for the car to read through. Delete the empty folders with a utility like Empty Folder Nuker.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...er-Nuker.shtml

And finally.........

7. Defragment the Drive
------------------------

Which will pack all the files neatly and contiguously at one end of the drive - potentially free up space at the end for more music and improve drive read speeds as the car doesn't need to search all over the drive for "bits" of the file to make one file.




8. Maintenance
---------------

As you drive the read arm on the hard drive gets jerked around a lot. There is a chance that it may skim the surface of the hard drive and physically damage some clusters which will lead to read errors. Minimize this by regularly repeating ponts 3 (Check for Errors) and 7 (Defragment) to keep the drive in good shape.


9. Future Development
----------------------

I suspect that the new solid state hard drives which use less power will be a HUGE improvement over the present situation. But at about US$600 per 40Gb I'm not in a rush to try this till one comes into our shop and is spare! Watch this space.....


Happy Listening.

[jtmccabe]

Originally Posted by fucema

The part number and link to newegg for the Apricorn drive is posted in an earlier reply in this thread. I'm kind of too drunk too look for it at the moment though. Do a search!

See post #5, which I have been updating regularly.

[T i h o r]

Just a quick question/thought; wouldn't it be easier to just buy a 160GB iPod classic and run that?

I mean yea it'd be great to have +200GB of music, but when are you really ever going to listen to all of that much of music in one sitting?

For the price and convenience, it might even be wiser to just got with the 80GB version.

[GarryF]

Originally Posted by T i h o r

Just a quick question/thought; wouldn't it be easier to just buy a 160GB iPod classic and run that?

I mean yea it'd be great to have +200GB of music, but when are you really ever going to listen to all of that much of music in one sitting?

For the price and convenience, it might even be wiser to just got with the 80GB version.

Well, if you look at uk prices then 80GB ipod is £155 and Lacie 60GB is £60 so big difference.

Then there is an argument that the sound quality is better using the DAC in the car compared to the DAC in the ipod which then transfers the sound down a crappy audio cable to the car.

[T i h o r]

Originally Posted by GarryF

Well, if you look at uk prices then 80GB ipod is £155 and Lacie 60GB is £60 so big difference.

Then there is an argument that the sound quality is better using the DAC in the car compared to the DAC in the ipod which then transfers the sound down a crappy audio cable to the car.

This is true, but if you get that "special" iPod wire from the stealership, the sound quality is bang-on. Plus not to mention that loads up all the albums and playlists in the iPod. Its actually pretty sweet.

[jtmccabe]

Originally Posted by T i h o r

Just a quick question/thought; wouldn't it be easier to just buy a 160GB iPod classic and run that?

I bought a 160 GB iPod and for me, yes, it was totally worth it. To date, I've bought three drives that either don't work at all or only work sometimes. That's way too much PITA to deal with just to save a few bucks. The point of this thread is to find a drive that works for everyone, to allow people to save money while eliminating the PITA factor. Also, I once wanted a drive bigger than 160 GB to hold all my music and then some. But then I realized that the extra space would be useless because of the 20k-song limit.

Originally Posted by T i h o r

I mean yea it'd be great to have +200GB of music, but when are you really ever going to listen to all of that much of music in one sitting?

It's not about stockpiling music so you can go on a 100-day road trip without ever hearing the same song twice. It's about having all your music available at all times, so if you want to hear a certain arbitrary song or artist, there it is. Also, deciding which of your 20k songs you want to take with you takes WAY too long!

[highendsyl]

Some additional remarks:
* The 1.8" Toshiba 60gb = 4200 rpm
* It takes a while before artists, albums, genres, playlists come available. They are updated constantly.
* My mobile phone was in the armrest. I received a call and the USB connection was lost. So the Bluetooth and/of GSM signal disturbs the USB connection. I have to find another spot for my mobile phone.

I will update with new experiences.......

PS. unlock of navi works perfect...... (but that is another threat)

[Nucking Futs!]

Originally Posted by highendsyl

I will update with new experiences.......

PS. unlock of navi works perfect...... (but that is another threat)

Unlock of navi? As in input address data while driving? PM me if you don't want to go off-topic in this thread, Thx!