idea??

[miltiadis_s]

just thought about a good concept. Can you hook up an external hard drive through the usb port on a head unit?

[Haydz]

some you can and some you cant. has to be tested with exact equipment before hand.. if you not sure on which one to buy go down to you local car audio shop and get them to test your hard drive with the head unit. before you buy it.

[arrow224]

More than likely, you need a HDD that is a) FAT32 formatted, not NTFS or other and b) only has the one USB plug as its data and power source. Those that need another plug (a second USB or AC mains) have a high chance of not working due to insufficient power.

[UNKNOWN]

I think you can get external hard drives that are like a 'media center' and u can plug them into any stereo.
But dont you still need power tho?

[Phreddy]

I reckon power will be the thing. Purely speculation, but the USB ports in these head units are intended for thumb drives which consume very low current. When you plug in a hard drive, it demands quite a bit more. (you can actually see this phenomenon with certain hard drives and certain laptop USB ports, when the port simply cannot supply the current that the device needs)

The way around it of course is to use a separate power cable for the drive, if your external housing allows that. Oh, I also tend to agree with what arrow224 said re the format - might have to be FAT32 or it might not read.

Just my two bob's worth anyhow - might be crap!

Cheerz!

[klaw81]

Some JVC head units (and possibly others) are capable of running a portable hard drive (laptop 2.5" HDD) from the USB port. If they're not, then a cheap invertor can power a full size 3.5" portable drive from your car battery.

[azkwazere]

Yeah, naturally anything that needs external mains will require it in this situation.

Im not 100% sure on file system... fat32 is very standard these days so you cant really go wrong with it. Id be tempted to say that some of the newer and higher range units may support NTFS or HFS+.... maybe not though...

aZk.

[kopper69]

Some JVC head units (and possibly others) are capable of running a portable hard drive (laptop 2.5" HDD) from the USB port. If they're not, then a cheap invertor can power a full size 3.5" portable drive from your car battery.

How do you mean inverter mate?

[arrow224]

How do you mean inverter mate?

Power inverter. Takes 12v in, outputs 240v. Like this one, from DSE.