sxue888

Anyone try to connect a portable USB hard drive which loaded with the iTune library to play in the ML350 USB connection?

I bought a 500GB portable USB 3.0 hard drive and copied my iTune library to the drive. When connected to ML350 using the MB factory USB cable, nothing happens

Any idea or suggestion?

fabbrisd1

Interesting experiment - the USB in the center console is a "data port" designed to be used with USB memory sticks/flash drive - it does not provide enough "current" to spin a hard drive - meaning for the hard drive to spin it will need additional power from the rear center console cigarette lighter socket - that said you will need some type of adapter/cable to connect to the external power input on your hard drive - that said once you get power to spin the hard drive - then I really don't know if you will be in business or not.

The data port will accept memory players that have a USB output.

500 GB drive - that's a lot of music - 128GB flash memory USB sticks are "better" grade about $140

sxue888

Thanks for the reply.

The 500GB Portable HD I bought (cost about $55) may NOT be equivalent of "flash drive". But it still does no need any external power. The power from the USB is sufficient like "flash drive"

I think I am going to try a USB 2.0 portable drive or a real flash drive to see if which one works next.

another_geek

What fabbrisd1 is trying to say is that not all USB ports are created equal. The USB 2.0 specification specifies 5V power for all devices, but the amount of current draw allowed only ranges between 100mA and 500mA. The amount of current needed to power a device varies, with a hard drive needing much more current than a flash drive. Some hard drives need more than the allowed 500mA to work properly. USB 3.0 ports allow much higher current but I doubt the port in our cars is USB 3.

On computers, this usually isn't a problem because most modern computers allow devices to draw more than 500mA - technically, outside of the standard spec. An iPad for instance needs 2.1A (2100mA) to charge properly - way outside of the USB spec.

USB 2.0 ports on devices other than computers (like our cars) usually stick to the specified standards and don't provide extra current beyond the minimum specs.

sxue888

So looks like a portable drive is out of question.
I will try the flash drive next. Anything over 128GB will be expensive.

I have over 300GB of iTunen music that I would like to play in the COMAND. Looks like there is no solution out there yet due the the limitation of the COMAND

another_geek

That isn't quite what I was saying - a hard drive is most likely possible, but you would either

1. try a different hard drive that uses less power. It varies by manufacturer
2. supply additional power to your current hard drive via the 12V power port and the necessary adapters

Another thing to consider - you didn't specify how you copied your iTunes library to your hard drive and what format your music is in. If all your music was purchased via iTunes, then it is most likely in AAC format, not MP3. COMMAND definitely plays MP3 format, but I haven't tried AAC. Many 3rd party players do not support AAC, outside of Apple devices.

another_geek

UPDATE:

I was curious so I tried a few experiments on my end. I used an extra 1TB USB drive I had and loaded a few music files on to it to see if the car would play them. Here is what I found:

1. drive must be formatted in the FAT32 format
2. power doesn't seem to be an issue

To the OP, my first question would be - what type of computer are you using?

If you are a Mac user, you must use disk utility to format (erase) the drive and reformat it in FAT32 format. You can then copy your files over again and see if they play.

If you a PC user, go to My Computer, right click on the drive icon and select Format. Choose FAT32 (not the default NTFS) to reformat the drive.

The reason that you don't have to do this on flash drives is because they are smaller, they are formatted in FAT32 format by default. Hard drives are formatted in NTFS (PC) or HFS+ (Mac) by default and the car doesn't support these. FAT32 is a holdover from the MSDOS days and while universal, is less efficient than the newer formats which is why larger drives don't use it anymore.

sxue888

My itune is mixed of both AAC and mp3.
I was able to export playlist to DVD and play in COMAND
But that's just 4GB.
I would like to copy my entire iTune library and play in COMAND. My library is over 300GB. No iPod or iPhone has this capacity
So this is why I am trying USB flash drive or portabel drive.

another_geek

see post #7

sxue888

You are genies!
I check the COMAND manual for supported devices and in deed, the format must be FAT32. The portable HD I bought is NTFS.
I am running Win 7 64bits so I could not even reformat it to FAT32. Only NTFS or exFAT is supported. I will check out to see if exFAT is backward compatible with FAT32. If not, I will get another FAT32 HD.

Thanks a lot!

another_geek

You can format a FAT32 drive w/ Win7 64.

Open a command prompt as an administrator, and use the command line

format <drive>: /FS:FAT32 /q

where <drive> is the drive letter you want to format. (Dont forget the colon). If you don't want to do a quick format, remove the /q parameter.

sxue888

Thanks for the tip. I am formatting my portable HD now.
It's painfully slow - 28% since the last 2 hours.

sxue888

Problem solved!

- Make sure/format the USB portable HD is/to FAT32
- Simply Drag-and-Drop the iTune directory into the HD
- Plug the HD to the USB port inside the arm-rest compartment
- Select USB Storage from the COMAND and play
- The whole lib is imported including the album art works too
- Enjoy you complete iTune library without iPod or iPhone

thanks for all the helps!

another_geek

You are welcome. Glad to hear it worked out for you.

fabbrisd1

Totally cool info - many thanks !

ESTrader

What USB stick are you guys using? I have an Sandisk Cruzer 128G and can't play ripped CD's. I can only play the music I downloaded from the iTunes store.

samaritrey

Is you ripped music in MP3 I am pretty sure that it usually defaults to ACC.

ESTrader

My CD's are ripped to Apple Lossless.