I have a Kenwood headunit with the 2.0 usb port and Im wanting to connect an external hard drive to it to store mp3 files. I have talked to Kenwood and they say it will work. I bought a seagate Free agent go and loaded some files on it. When I connect it to my headunit the harddrive powers up for a second and then shuts down and beeps. Kenwood thinks it maybe that the radio doesnt put out enough power to run this hard drive. I tried to contact Seagate for specs but I cant get any reasponse. I have seen something similar on one of the cr shows but dont remember which one. Im hopeing the one of you guys can help.

 

an external HDD is way to much in the first place. i have a 8 GB flashdrive on my premiere and its got a whole bunch of music on it and still way more room. but its a pain in the ass to have to scroll through all that music. try a flash drive.

 

Ok ill have to try that. Is there any special way I need to load the files to the flash drive to make it work?

 

You can power hte external hdd with a 5v USB power converter or just supply 5v to the red and black wires of the USB plug however the largest addressible firmware I have seen for kenwood, jvc, or pioneer was 32gb so you may or may not be able to see your music

 

Switch to a 16GB flash drive. I've got one and although I don't use it in my car (i use my micro 8GB flash drive and two 4 gbs for other genres) it holds WAY more than I could want on one trip.

Hard drives just seem too delicate to be storing along up in your car. At least you'll have a little more piece of mind with a solid state thumb/flash drive.

 

Actual hard drives DO pull too many amps to be powered up by traditional HU's. They have many moving physical parts compared to a flash drive. That is what consumes so much power.

It is a basic rule of thumb in the industry that the 8gb flash drive basically is the best mix of capacity and ease of access to the playlists.

 

External Hard drive to Car whoa I have never heard of this thing at all.... is this true? if you are successful pls let me know i would like to try too.

 

External hard drives in a car have been done many times back a few years ago when flash drives were allot more expensive. Now though, flash drives are sold even at 7 Eleven and are dirt cheap. So many people just put everything they have on mulitple labeled flash drives and keep it simple. Manufacturers like Alpine have HU's out now that don't even have CD drives-just really fast USB ports and AM/FM tuners. Popular sellers too...

 

SD card slots are getting more popular too...between SD and flash drives getting a big pile of songs into your car for little money is getting easy!

 

I just swapped the HDD for a flash drive but avent had a chance to try it.