Question about USB inputs on stereos - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

Toytruckmike · 01-25-2009, 08:56 AM

I have been looking at upgrading from the stock radio in my 07 Taco and am seeing more and more with USB inputs.

1. If I had a backup hard drive that would hold my mp3s, would the head unit be able to access them and control the playlists I would upload from my home PC? If it would work that way, seems like it could be a cool way to access all my songs without leaving an Ipod in my truck.

2. If this does work, would the head unit charge the battery in the hard drive and shut it off when needed?

I am leaning towards the Eclipse double DIN units, but like Alpine and Kenwood also. Help! Eclipse has a new AVN coming this year that looks like it could be just what I am wanting.

Cheers!
Michael

toto · 01-25-2009, 10:07 AM

You would have to check the specs on the radio to see if it could handle a big hard drive like that. Of the USB ports I've seen, most are designed for the flash memory sticks (like 2 GB, 4 GB, etc.) The USB port might not be powered, and if it's not, it would not charge a battery-powered hard drive. But again, check the radio manual. Another detail to check is the file system format on the drive. The little ones are often still FAT32, while a big backup drive might be NTFS. The radio probably wouldn't like NTFS.

bassman444 · 01-25-2009, 11:17 AM

Unfortunately I'm not near my old truck which had a Sony head unit with a usb input on the front or I would check. I tend to doubt that it's powered, but if you had a hard drive that was powered independently (from an inverter) it might work. The drive can be reformatted to FAT32 if that's what the radio needs, and in fact my backup drive (160 gig Western Digital) came formatted as FAT32 and I had to reformat it to NTFS to back up my computer.

I will say this, though. On a nice double DIN unit, the ipod navigation is probably going to be better than choosing songs from the hard drive, unless you don't mind just leaving your library on shuffle. The hard drive isn't going to be able to do playlists or anything like that.

el_smurfo · 01-25-2009, 03:35 PM

All USB ports are powered...the only question is if they are designed to source enough power for a hard drive. Many hard drives consume so much juice, they come with a Y cable to tap up to 500mA from two separate USB ports. I'd guess a USB port on a head unit was designed for a solid state flash disk, and thus will not source enough to run your hard drive (and might possibly damage it if you try)..

Toytruckmike · 01-25-2009, 04:54 PM

OK, I knew it sounded to good to be true.
Thanks all,
Michael S.

marvin02 · 01-25-2009, 05:11 PM

Check the specs for the head units you may be interested in. Some may be able to read large storage devices.

You can buy an adapter that will plug into a 12 V power outlet that has a USB connection on it and supplies power for USB devices. You could use one of these to provide additional power.