I've seen all the discussions about MP3 formats, usb drives (size and formatting) and made me think about a separate thread.

Has anyone ever been able to connect a USB portable Hard drive to their XF?

Would be incredible to have 128GB to 500GB of music available (might be overkill, but...) in one's car.

The USB ports are powered, so the real question is if the headend can recognize and access the drive.

 

I connected a 128G SSD in a USB 2 HDD carrier to the USB port on my '09 XF SC. The HDD had 12 test folders with an album in each. Seemed to work fine but the main problem was finding an app that allows you to format a large partition as FAT32. There are a couple out there, just google.

I also tried a regular 40G HDD but the USB port did not seem to be able to provide enough power to spin up the HDD. I connected a splitter cable to a cigarette lighter USB device and that also worked. I am going to find a 128G USB 2 stick.

- Tim

 

SWEET; Thanks @Timfountain for sharing your solution.

Found a NexStarTX USB 2.0 case lying around the house. Unlike other USB external drives, it only derives power from a single USB plug, not dual.

I didn't have an SSD so tried a Western Digital Hard drive (320gb).

Formatted After formatting to Fat32, using 'Guiformat' http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...?guiformat.htm

Plugged into my 2012 XF's USB port and Surprisingly, it worked! Plenty of power for the hard drive!

 

My 256GB and 128GB thumbdrives worked fine, my 500GB standard external pocket drive (spinning drive) did not.

Haven't figured out how to lay my folders out quite yet but that's just trial and error.

 

Thumb / Flash drives are clearly the way to go but also cost between $80 and $120 due to lack of moving parts and low / no power consumption.

Using the Hard Drive was my last resort, but happy to use what I already had on hand rather than spend additional $'s.

 

I use this 128gb usb drive with no problems, only $44.

 

I use a micro 16G, holds enough music that I cancelled Sat radio.

 

A few more things I've learned since hooking up the hard drive:

1) The head-end in your Jaguar will index all your songs / folders when you first connect. The larger the drive (and slower - i.e., hard drive vs. flash vs. SSD) the longer it takes for it to complete and be able to play the first song

2) The head-end is limited to X songs / folders. I don't know what the # is, but it clearly can't handle 150GB of music. I've been cutting music out of the drive, and the # of folders I can't see is getting smaller. The result of this? Don't expect to be able to see all 128GB of music on your drive.

 

The issues I've had with going larger than 32gb is the redocking everytime I restart the car. The 32gb works flawlessly and holds enough music to drive around the planet. When I tried the 64gb stick, it would show all of the music after docking, but as soon as I turned the car off and restarted, the docking would begin all over again. Which became a nuisance. I want to ask have any of you guys using a stick larger than 32gb had any redocking issues?

 

What you refer to as 'redocking', I was describing as indexing.

For that reason, i was thinking about just sticking with a 16gb or 32gb drive.

Seems more reasonable to have less music quickly accessible, than tons of music (most I wouldn't listen to) that takes 2 minutes to dock / index every tim you start the car.