# External Hard Drive in a car?



## rescueguy (Dec 7, 2011)

Not sure if this belongs here or in the car PC section. I've been looking for several days and cannot find a direct answer. I have (or will have) a Kenwood KIV-BT901. I am thinking rather than buy an Ipod, I can buy an external hard drive and copy all my music files to it. Then connect it to the USB on the Kenwood and wolah! Will this work? Is there anyone who makes and external portable hard drive that powers off the USB only? I really dont want to buy an inverter to power the hard drive. I have a ton of music and need a pretty large hard drive. Purchasing an ipod to store all the music files would be really pricey. Any input is appreciated.


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## ChrisB (Jul 3, 2008)

You need to be careful as many head units don't have enough juice through the USB port to drive some thumb drives, therefore they will not have enough juice to spin up a hard drive. See if your Kenwood owner's manual provides a mA output on the USB prior to buying the external hard drive.


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## jcorkin (Jan 26, 2012)

you will need more than 500mA to power an external hard drive i would say 800mA to 1A to power one and i believe most only output around the 500mA area which is not enough power to spin up a hard drive.


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## The Baron Groog (Mar 15, 2010)

It'll run some-at least the UK KDC-BT61U will. Solid state drives should be fine, otherwise you need to try and test drives or get the specs, as stated above, 1st.


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## bigaudiofanatic (Mar 1, 2009)

Thumb drive or SSD I would stay away from Hard drives.


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## marvnmars (Dec 30, 2011)

Check the design of the external, some will accept a second usb input for power while using the other for data. if you can find one like this, or go to fry's.com to order your own case that uses this set up (they are avaliable as I have bought them before) you can then buy a small usb dual charger for your cig lighter/dc port in your car and power the h/d w/one port and your cell phone with the other. http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Compact-High-Output-Charger/dp/B00470C35E/ref=pd_cp_e_2 is a good little charger, i have 1 and it just stays plugged into my cig lighter.. you can also look for used ipod classics 160, I have bought 3 of these off of craigs list for around $100 each, in great condition. while i am no a fan of itunes, i am a fan of the interface. 
hope this helps, good luck.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

jcorkin said:


> you will need more than 500mA to power an external hard drive i would say 800mA to 1A to power one and i believe most only output around the 500mA area which is not enough power to spin up a hard drive.


I'm pretty sure this isn't the case. I have an external drive (2.5") which is powered by the USB port. The BIOS on my motherboard shuts down the port if more than 500mA is drawn.


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## rescueguy (Dec 7, 2011)

Thanks for the input, guys. I have had 3 units with front USB (2 Sony, 1 JVC) I have used a thumb or "jump" drive on every reciever with no problem. I am just looking for something big enough to put all my music on and not worry about it. I will be sure to take everything into consideration. Baron Groog - I have never dealt with anything from the UK. In theory, to me anyways, it seems there would be no difference between the USB power on a UK unit and a US unit. It would seem the only difference would only involve tuning and maybe reading different disk formats than what "the norm" is over here.


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## dragonxwas (Sep 21, 2011)

if its a made for ipod head unit don't worry it has enough juice,
just make sure you don't partition the hard disk and keep the format in fat32..

now if a hard disk is more than 40gb I guess, you won't be able to convert it to fat32.. for that you can uses many 3rd party utilities like swissknife to format it in fat32..

source : I've been using a hard disk in my car for over 2 years now.. btw.. head unit - kenwood u6043


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## nubz69 (Aug 27, 2005)

Here is how you do it with a Sony head unit. You can try it on yours but I can't promise it will work.

You will need an externally powered HD that is partitioned in FAT32. If this is a large drive you will need special software to do this in windows but you don't have that limit in Linux. Make sure that the drive has fully spun up before you select USB on your head unit. 

Again this may work, it may not.


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## PCNW9 (Feb 21, 2012)

Not to hijack, but I've wondered whether putting a HD in your car would contribute to early mechanical failure due to the constant vibration. HDs are sensitive, high-precision mechanical devices, and they all fail eventually, so I would think that having one in a car _has_ to shorten their lifespan.

Although I guess the flip side is that if you're driving 1-2 hours a day, that's less cumulative spin time than if it's sitting in a computer that's turned on all day.

This is purely speculation on my part, but even so, if I was going to put a HD in my car, it'd be a solid state for sure. No moving parts on the SSD would make it impervious to vibration, and should draw less power, too, as has been mentioned.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

PCNW9 said:


> Not to hijack, but I've wondered whether putting a HD in your car would contribute to early mechanical failure due to the constant vibration. HDs are sensitive, high-precision mechanical devices, and they all fail eventually, so I would think that having one in a car _has_ to shorten their lifespan.
> 
> Although I guess the flip side is that if you're driving 1-2 hours a day, that's less cumulative spin time than if it's sitting in a computer that's turned on all day.
> 
> This is purely speculation on my part, but even so, if I was going to put a HD in my car, it'd be a solid state for sure. No moving parts on the SSD would make it impervious to vibration, and should draw less power, too, as has been mentioned.


I've been using mechanical HDDs in car PCs for a little over 10 years and have dealt with far fewer failures than I have in my file server in the house! In fact, I never actually had one of my car PC drives die (although a friend who I helped had his die, and ironically it was a laptop drive).

My impression is that temperature is the bigger concern with hard drives. There are studies that show that extreme cold is bad for them, and they usually don't even spin up below about 18 deg F. Extreme heat is also bad, obviously. I don't think SSDs are immune to this.


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## eye_see_you (Jan 14, 2012)

SSD has a higher thermal rating than mechanical does but think of doing a CF card, micro sd or other type with an adapter and you are golden as far as heat and being reliable with minimal power requirements


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

I have been pretty unsuccessful trying to power an external Seagate hard drive with my Kenwood KDC-x994 stereo. With engine running it work reset every once in a while. With engine off, it work reset every few minutes. I suspect that the Kenwood USB port does not provide enough juice to power a hard drive. However, I have had no issues with thumb drives. Right now I am using Amazon Basics 32GB USB thumb drive. Even with 320kbps compression, that's still enough space for a ton of mp3s.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

It may have a higher thermal rating on the top end, but my understanding is that you still get issues below 0C. IIRC, OCZ rates theirs to be operable only down to 0.


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## marvnmars (Dec 30, 2011)

you might try one of these Amazon.com: Cables To Go 28107 USB 2.0 Mini-B Male to 2 USB A Male Y-Cable (6 Feet, Black): Electronics
to power your h/d as it does not sound like your kenwood h/u is doing the trick. use this cable and a usb car charger (some variation of this Amazon.com: Griffin Powerjolt Dual Universal USB Micro: MP3 Players & Accessories ) and your power problems should be gone. as far as the mechanical h/d vs solid state h/d debate goes, i personally like the ss, no spin time, faster access to your info, no moving parts to fail....that being said the number of time it can be read/written to is limited, but you should easily get a few years use before you reach that number... by then all your music will be in a cloud and it will not matter.


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## atxtrd (Apr 30, 2011)

The new Pioneer deh-p80prs manual says USB will supply up to 1A, fat32 as well. I have 1tb of music (yeah I know, it's a lot) and am trying to set up a drive and keep it in the glove box. I'm waiting for this Pioneer unit to hit stores so I can do my install. It would be nice to find a way to tie an ipod into a 1tb drive and use the interface!


Edit: The HU will only support 15k files...bummer. You can take a 5/5.5 gen iPod and upgrade the HD to 240gb, http://www.idemigods.com/iPod_Video...d_Drive_MK2431GAH_p/240gbhrddrv_mk2431gah.htm


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## Mack (Jul 27, 2007)

I see that you live in Ohio, so there's a remote chance you live semi-close to a Microcenter. (Cleveland/Columbus/Cinci).

Micro Center - OCZ Technology Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 60GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with SandForce 2281 Controller AGT3-25SAT3-60G 

+

Micro Center - Inland 2.5" SATA to USB 2.0 External Portable Hard Drive Enclosure 660589

=~$67.00 to go SSD (no moving parts to cause damage....vibration sucks).

I think you can take back anything that doesn't work for you...I took back RAM to exchange it for another brand...no questions asked.


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## LARRIE COLE ......PENG (Jan 19, 2020)

THERE ARE A FEW PROBLEMS WITH RUNNING A HARD DRIVE IN A CAR.

EASY POWER, METER DEVICE POWER CORD JACK TO TRANSFORMER FOR POLARITY, ...
THEN UNPLUG AND CUT WIRES AND STRIP. PUT IN IN LINE FUSE TO BOTH SIDES .....JUST IN CASE.
12 VOLT 5 AMP FUSES. THEN WIRE TO POWER SOURCE OR TO A PLUG IN CIGARETTE LIGHTER 
THAT WILL POWER YOUR HARD DRIVE.
I HAVE BEEN USING A CHEAP WINDOWS 10 LAP TOP TO INTERFACE COST ME $240 CND
10 TB HARD DRIVES AT $250 CND. FOR MOVIES AND SOUND
THROUGH USB AND SOUND OUT TO STEREO OR BLUE TOOTH.
BLUE TOOTH ADAPTER'S ARE ABOUT $20.00

DID THIS ORIGIONALLY ABOUT 20 YRS OR MORE AGO WITH A 250 GB DRIVE AND FLASH DRIVES


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## Asdcreation (Dec 11, 2018)

After 8 years........somebody woken up


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## Amorous (Apr 20, 2014)

WHY ARE YOU YELLING THOUGH? 

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk


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## imickey503 (Dec 16, 2015)

LOL>


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## Holmz (Jul 12, 2017)

bigaudiofanatic said:


> Thumb drive or SSD I would stay away from Hard drives.


And the SSD do not crash the heads with vibration.


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