Wolffe72

I'm currently using a 160GB iPod in my 2011 RX350 (my first Lexus). However, it feels like somewhat of a waste to have an iPod permanently doing nothing but serving songs in the car (even though, that's exactly what it was doing in my previous car). I figure I would care less if an HDD was ever stolen, plus, I could use a much larger drive.

Is anyone using an external HDD instead?

I was thinking of connecting something like a WD Elements drive, if possible, but I'm curious about two things:

1. What it the power output on the USB port in the RX 350? Is it only .5A? A basic USB port won't provide enough power for a standalone external HDD.

2. Is the HDD interface much slower than the iPod's? I know that at one time the HDD interface on car decks were quite slow when initially scanning the drive. I'm not sure if this has improved. I like the almost instant response from the iPod even with my large music library.

I have to say that the Mark Levinson system doesn't sound too bad for a factory setup. I didn't really have my hopes up...

thebossac

i have a 2010 IS250 and i am currently using the Seagate FreeAgent 320GB Hard Drive and it works fine. the initial scanning take a little bit of time, but not much, maybe 30 seconds or so, after that, everything is instant response.

however, u have to organize the drive before use. u can only put 255 songs in one folder. i have about 4,000 songs in the drive, so i have to create a lot of folders. Also, when u select randomize when playing, it doesn't jump from one folder to another, it only randomize the songs in the folder u selected.

u might also when to check out this thread
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es3...ard-drive.html

happy1977

How about not putting the songs in any folder, would that work?

thebossac

it will only play the first 255 songs if you don't put in any folder

djkidkris

I currently use a 32 gig Thumb drive with MP3s organized with folders. Works pretty well and the response is fast. I do have an issue though. In some folders some MP3s get skipped over. Any one know what causes the system to skip over some MP3s? Encoding limitations? Title or Metadata character limits? Length or size of file? Special characters in the text fields?

Most of my MP3s are encoded with iTunes at 320kbps VBR and minimum 128kbps. They are all MP3 and no other format. Some files are singles and others are full mixes that may be over an hour long. I can't seem to determine the commonality between all the files that get skipped. Thanks.

Wolffe72

Yeah, I've read that the thumbdrives tend to work faster... but I want to move up in storage or at least be comparable. I have yet to see a 250GB thumb drive although I read that Kingston produced one.

I've got a LOT of music. I'm sure a lot of it will never be listened to, but it's so hard to decide what to include and what to exclude. My music is all divided into an Artist\Album heirarchy so no folder would have more than 255 songs in it (although I have approximately 250 artists in my collection). I have everything stored as 320kbps. I used to resample to a lower bitrate for the car but since the 160GB iPod came around I now leave everything at 320kbps.

I have to say that the iPod does work great in the car. There is almost no waiting. I haven't noticed it skip any songs but my random list is fairly big so it would be hard to tell.

In about a month, my wife will have the Lexus for a year while on maternity leave so the iPod will go back into my car. I want to leave something for her in the Lexus and so I thought a plain and simple hard drive might do just as well. Maybe I'll just buy one and give it a try... I'm sure I could find a good use for another external drive if it doesn't work out.

Evant

I noticed the same thing as well when using my USB thumb drive. All the MP3s I have were downloaded from Amazon MP3, but some songs could not be recognized. The technicians at the Lexus dealer could not find anything wrong with the software and there were no updates available. They also told me that it's meant to be used with an iPod and not a USB flash drive. I didn't believe them, but I have since given up on using the USB drive because it's happening with many of my songs. I now BT stream from my phone and it works perfectly.

MEP7557

I use the BT connection with my iphone and when piped through the ML system the sound is awesome. Especially some of the newer songs that take full use of the 7.1 architecture.