USB Hard Drive and SIRIUS XM Question

[dataguy]

Before I got my iPhone, I used a 32GB USB stick formatted as FAT32 with no issues.

 

[ASHDUMP]

I haven't tried using the USB yet. You don't think picture files would get in the way while listening to music would you? For each album, I have cover art and all my files are .wav

 

[OBCT]

I haven't tried using the USB yet. You don't think picture files would get in the way while listening to music would you? For each album, I have cover art and all my files are .wav

Nope, no problems whatsoever. I wondered the same thing as I was copying folders and folders worth of data onto the USB drive (some containing jpegs, playlists, text files, etc), but it appears as though the system ignores non-compatible audio files completely.

Something I haven't tried, but might do later on as an experiment, is a sub-folder containing mixed formats... ie. mp3, wma & wav files together. I expect it will play them all, but I wonder how it sorts them and if/how the total load time will be affected in this scenario.

 

[ASHDUMP]

UPDATE:

I finally got my 500GB SeaGate external hard drive to work in the Genesis. I had to download a 3rd party software to reformat to FAT/FAT32. I spent hours upon hours scouring the internet looking for a solution. Along the way I found thousands of people just like myself trying to reformat with no luck. The obvious was to use the Windows reformat tool but it doesn't work.

Anyway... to make a long story short, I have it reformatted as 1 partition using http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/index.html

I found the above link from http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/

Use the debug version. If anyone is interested let me know if you have any questions. There are no instruction so back stuff up!!! You will lose everything if you reformat using this software.

 

[QCTLG]

ASHDUMP,

I'm most interested in the outcome of when you plug it in and run it for a few days. I had a 320GB hard drive (formatted to Fat32) but was MAJOR disappointed as it kept resetting every once in awhile. (When I say resetting, I mean it keeps going back to the first song)

I had 73GB and over 11,000 songs loaded.
I had also tried a different hard drive and the same thing happened.

I now use 4G USB drives and have no problems AT ALL.

Please keep us posted if it works out for you.
thanks in advance

 

[ASHDUMP]

ASHDUMP,

I'm most interested in the outcome of when you plug it in and run it for a few days. I had a 320GB hard drive (formatted to Fat32) but was MAJOR disappointed as it kept resetting every once in awhile. (When I say resetting, I mean it keeps going back to the first song)

I had 73GB and over 11,000 songs loaded.
I had also tried a different hard drive and the same thing happened.

I now use 4G USB drives and have no problems AT ALL.

Please keep us posted if it works out for you.
thanks in advance

When you say, "resetting" do you mean every time you turn the car off and then turn back on? Like it doesn't stay in the same folder or same song as it did right before you turn the car off?

Or in the middle of the song it would jump right back to the first track in the first folder?

I'll keep you posted. I haven't actually used it that much, only to make sure that it did work. I'll keep you posted though.

 

[QCTLG]

When you say, "resetting" do you mean every time you turn the car off and then turn back on? Like it doesn't stay in the same folder or same song as it did right before you turn the car off?.

Yes,
That's exactly what I meant, except it doesn't do that everytime I shut the car off. It's intermittent and it drove me crazy!!!
It has NEVER done that since I've used the USB sticks.

Please keep me posted...I really hope it works good for you.

Regards,

 

[ASHDUMP]

So far my 500GB external hard drive is working flawlessly. Try reformatting your external drive with the software I posted above.

 

[QCTLG]

I've already downloaded the software but I will wait a week or 2 and maybe try it again...
What I mean is I'll wait to hear from you in a week or 2 to see if I should try it again.
I'm also debating whether I should wait till spring as the cold is certainly coming here in Quebec
and am not sure if these hard disk can handle the cold.

I appreciate your info very much...thanks

Regards,

 

[OBCT]

Interesting find, ASHDUMP. I'll try formatting my 1TB drive with the tokiwa FAT32 Formatter and see what happens. Would be nice to have that option.

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[OBCT]

UPDATE:

I re-formatted my Iomega eGo Deaktop 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive [link] - which is really just a Samsung HDD rebadged by Iomega - using the software recommended by ASHDUMP.

It worked great. Tokiwa FAT32Formatter [link] changed the drive from exFAT to FAT32 in about 5 hours. No problems to report.

I did a small test with some music on the newly formatted drive for the Genesis. I used a few dozen files of different audio types/formats in the root folder and in different subfolders ... just to see which would work, which wouldn't work, how they're sorted in the display, how the total load time would be, etc.

The test pretty much confirmed my suspicions. All the .mp3 and .wma tracks worked perfectly; they loaded quickly and sounded great. As expected, the .wav tracks did not show up, as they are incompatible with the Genesis software. Also worth noting: the system displays everything together. By this I mean it does not sort by file type; it displays all the compatible audio files in alphabetical order by folder, by filename. It ignores non-compatible file types altogether.


Summary:
In a subfolder loaded with .mp3, .wma and .wav audio files, it displays all the .mp3 and .wma files together sorted alphabetically by filename, and omits the .wav files.

 

[ASHDUMP]

Good deal! I'm glad you got the HD to work well in your Genesis. Did you lose any disk space when reformatting? 1TB is a lot of space!!!!

 

[OBCT]

Good deal! I'm glad you got the HD to work well in your Genesis. Did you lose any disk space when reformatting? 1TB is a lot of space!!!!

No! I'm very impressed by this. FAT32 is a very versatile format. It will allow me to keep all of my media on this one backup drive, being compatible with almost every USB interface and software platform out there. That program you dug up is quite brilliant.

Even though I expect the load time to be quite long once I fill it with all 50+GB of my music (I'll test this later), it's great that I can also load the same drive up with tons more different stuff (documents, movies, apps, pictures, etc) and the Genesis will simply ignore the rest. My 1TB hard drive is now the all-in-one solution I hoped it would be.... I'm thinking it will be especially useful for road trips with friends -- you know, the ones with very specific taste in music.

I'll stick with my 16GB USB thumb drive for regular commutes and local driving, due simply to it's small size, easy access and quick load times.

 

[dataguy]

Whatever you do, please make sure you have a backup of the hard drive you use in the car. Not only are most such drives not meant for vibration (that's why automotive hard drives are ridiculously expensive and low capacity), but shutdown is unpredictable. While the head unit is probably only reading the drive, you never know how fussy the drive may be.

 

[OBCT]

Whatever you do, please make sure you have a backup of the hard drive you use in the car. Not only are most such drives not meant for vibration (that's why automotive hard drives are ridiculously expensive and low capacity), but shutdown is unpredictable. While the head unit is probably only reading the drive, you never know how fussy the drive may be.

Good advice, dataguy. With that in mind, I went ahead and did some further testing today. I used my 1TB drive (re-formatted to FAT32) for all the tests.

The first thing I wanted to test was load/response time of the system when a USB device filled with a large quantity of files was connected. I copied my entire music library (I rip every CD or DVD-A I buy) on to the external hard drive -- all 9500 tracks. Altogether, it comes to 620 hours (or 3.5 weeks straight) of music. The songs are mostly encoded in .mp3 format (with a couple dozen .wma files sprinkled in), and most have a bitrate in the 192~320kbps range. Total storage size occupied by audio tracks = 60GB.

I also copied the entirety of my family's digital photo collection to the same drive. Total storage size occupied by images = 15GB.

Total storage size occupied on disk = 75GB. 1000GB total divided by 75GB occupied = 7.5% of disk occupied.


So, my first test was initial load time when connecting the drive via the USB drive. It took the system around 50 seconds to load the audio data (from moment of USB connection to audio being heard and USB audio screen displayed on DIS). Not fast, not slow; I can live with initial load times under a minute for 9500 songs.

Second test was response time between tracks when skipping to the next track in the same folder. This was very fast ... observably, just as fast as when doing the same thing with 10GB of audio data loaded onto my other 16GB flash drive. Excellent.

Third test was response time after engaging the "Random Track" feature. This was very fast as well. Very slight hesitation (maybe a second) was all.

Fourth test was response time when skipping to the next track with the "Random Track" still engaged. Very fast, again. Basically no hesitation whatsoever.

Fifth test was response time of the DIS menu commands for the USB folders in which the audio are tracks stored. I found the menu to be sluggish at times when moving from page to page of folders when in the root folder. (I have all my music sorted into sub-folders by artist, and to further sub-folders by album, so there is a lot going on for the system to handle). This wasn't unbearable, but rather, annoying.

Some other things of note:

- I noticed for sure today that the "random" feature does not randomize the entire disk's worth of audio. Based on my non-extensive, non-scientific testing, it seems as though it picks a certain number of sub-folders (at maximum) to use for the random playlist, and then also limits that playlist by track number as well. I have no idea what the software limitations of this feature are, but they made themselves obvious to me today. There are several reasons for me coming to this conclusion, but I don't have the time to write about them now.

The "random" feature is still very nice, IMO, but not as perfect as I originally thought.

- I also noticed that the DIS menu would get "hung up" or stuck sometimes while the system changed from song to song (which are in different sub-folders) when on the "random" setting. This did not happen a lot, and did not happen consistently, but when it did, it was quite annoying.


Overall, I was impressed with the Genesis' ability to playback music from a large volume storage device with little headache. If you're the type of person who likes to have all their music on hand, have a huge library, and don't like lugging around CDs, then this is a neat possibility. Better if you stick to straight listen through with large volumes, as I've found the random feature becomes less useful the more songs you have.

 

[ASHDUMP]

- I noticed for sure today that the "random" feature does not randomize the entire disk's worth of audio. Based on my non-extensive, non-scientific testing, it seems as though it picks a certain number of sub-folders (at maximum) to use for the random playlist, and then also limits that playlist by track number as well. I have no idea what the software limitations of this feature are, but they made themselves obvious to me today. There are several reasons for me coming to this conclusion, but I don't have the time to write about them now.

The "random" feature is still very nice, IMO, but not as perfect as I originally thought.

- I also noticed that the DIS menu would get "hung up" or stuck sometimes while the system changed from song to song (which are in different sub-folders) when on the "random" setting. This did not happen a lot, and did not happen consistently, but when it did, it was quite annoying.

I'm glad everything is working out for ya. I also noticed that the "random" feature doesn't work that well either. For me, it will only pick like 3 or 4 folders and pick songs from them. Actually... it really sucks. I'm thinking of taking another flash USB and putting all the music on it in ONE folder so it will be a true random function.

Also, I hate that it also skips back to the beginning of the list when you go back to the main menu. If you have 100+ artists you always start with the letter "A".

 

[TEF]

After reading this great thread I have a question. I've formatted a 160 GB drive as FAT32 and successfully played MP3s on the car's system. However, I note that my display (I have the Premium Plus package audio system), will indicate: folder, file, title, artist, album when pressing the "info" button. The first two bits of info (folder and file) display fine, but how does one create MP3 files with title, artist and album info? I am using Nero Version 6 to create MP3 files principally from my CD collection. Is there a way to imbed the remaining data (title, artist and album info) as one creates MP3 files?

 

[Paulroger]

I have used Windows Media Player to rip my music collection to MP3 for use on USB on the DIS system. All of the info you mentioned is automatically included and viewable on the PC. Unfortunately, not all displayed on DIS (I can't speak about your non DIS system). While I don't currently have one, more info is displayed if using and IPOD or IPhone.

 

[ASHDUMP]

Good advice, dataguy. With that in mind, I went ahead and did some further testing today. I used my 1TB drive (re-formatted to FAT32) for all the tests.

The first thing I wanted to test was load/response time of the system when a USB device filled with a large quantity of files was connected. I copied my entire music library (I rip every CD or DVD-A I buy) on to the external hard drive -- all 9500 tracks. Altogether, it comes to 620 hours (or 3.5 weeks straight) of music. The songs are mostly encoded in .mp3 format (with a couple dozen .wma files sprinkled in), and most have a bitrate in the 192~320kbps range. Total storage size occupied by audio tracks = 60GB.

I also copied the entirety of my family's digital photo collection to the same drive. Total storage size occupied by images = 15GB.

Total storage size occupied on disk = 75GB. 1000GB total divided by 75GB occupied = 7.5% of disk occupied.


So, my first test was initial load time when connecting the drive via the USB drive. It took the system around 50 seconds to load the audio data (from moment of USB connection to audio being heard and USB audio screen displayed on DIS). Not fast, not slow; I can live with initial load times under a minute for 9500 songs.

Second test was response time between tracks when skipping to the next track in the same folder. This was very fast ... observably, just as fast as when doing the same thing with 10GB of audio data loaded onto my other 16GB flash drive. Excellent.

Third test was response time after engaging the "Random Track" feature. This was very fast as well. Very slight hesitation (maybe a second) was all.

Fourth test was response time when skipping to the next track with the "Random Track" still engaged. Very fast, again. Basically no hesitation whatsoever.

Fifth test was response time of the DIS menu commands for the USB folders in which the audio are tracks stored. I found the menu to be sluggish at times when moving from page to page of folders when in the root folder. (I have all my music sorted into sub-folders by artist, and to further sub-folders by album, so there is a lot going on for the system to handle). This wasn't unbearable, but rather, annoying.

Some other things of note:

- I noticed for sure today that the "random" feature does not randomize the entire disk's worth of audio. Based on my non-extensive, non-scientific testing, it seems as though it picks a certain number of sub-folders (at maximum) to use for the random playlist, and then also limits that playlist by track number as well. I have no idea what the software limitations of this feature are, but they made themselves obvious to me today. There are several reasons for me coming to this conclusion, but I don't have the time to write about them now.

The "random" feature is still very nice, IMO, but not as perfect as I originally thought.

- I also noticed that the DIS menu would get "hung up" or stuck sometimes while the system changed from song to song (which are in different sub-folders) when on the "random" setting. This did not happen a lot, and did not happen consistently, but when it did, it was quite annoying.


Overall, I was impressed with the Genesis' ability to playback music from a large volume storage device with little headache. If you're the type of person who likes to have all their music on hand, have a huge library, and don't like lugging around CDs, then this is a neat possibility. Better if you stick to straight listen through with large volumes, as I've found the random feature becomes less useful the more songs you have.

Hows your 1TB hard drive working out? Still running good?

I haven't tried, but do .wav files work and if so are there any differences in operation? I'm trying to find a way that doesn't filter by name. It is tough to always start with "A".

 

[OBCT]

Hows your 1TB hard drive working out? Still running good?

I haven't tried, but do .wav files work and if so are there any differences in operation? I'm trying to find a way that doesn't filter by name. It is tough to always start with "A".

I haven't been using that drive very much. It's a little bulky for everyday use, to be honest. When I have used it, though, it's been great. (Except for the "random" feature, which has already been discussed in this and other threads as a point of slight frustration/disappointment for many.)

No, .wav files do not work; .mp3 and .wma audio files are the only compatible formats. (This was also discussed earlier.)

Nope, filtering by name is the only possibility. There are times when this limitation is a big hassle, but my family and I are pretty much used to it now.


Other than that, the only thing to report is that I've had my USB drive overheat (or so I assume) on 2 separate occasions, both of which on long roadtrips to southern CA. When this happens, the high temperature causes the DIS to temporarily "break": it briefly turns black, then automatically resets itself (ie. turns back on w/ the startup Hyundai logo - just as though you turned the car on). This malfunction does not affect the car in any way other than resetting the DIS.

If you do not remove the USB soon enough, the system will reset, boot up again and automatically attempt to continue playing from where it left off. The USB drive/enclosure will still be too hot, causing the system to reboot again and again in a loop until the drive is removed.

At that point, I gave the system time to cool off. I did not re-insert a USB drive until at least my next pit stop, waiting 2+ hours at minimum before retrying USB audio in the Genesis.

The 2 separate occasions of this problem were ~3 months apart. Each time it occurred after ~3-4 hours straight of freeway driving, listening to USB music on "random" the whole time. Both instances saw the exact same symptoms, as described above. These malfunctions have not appeared to cause any collateral damage to the system otherwise. These are basically the only problems my family has experienced with the Genesis in the 4+ months we've driven it.