Car stereo install, have some questions...

[Rich]

Sup So my buddy and I are installing a Clarion CZ509 deck into my Jeep today. The deck has a USB interface that can read from mass storage devices like thumb drives. Well, I got the genius idea to take an unused 2.5" hard drive from my old laptop, put it in an external enclosure w/ USB interface, and mount it in my glove box. 120GB drive, formatted to around 100 GB or more, should hold all the music I could possibly want. Hell, I only have 35 GB of music to put on it right now.

My big problem is finding a HD enclosure that reads as a Mass Storage device via USB. This is a must, as the deck can only interface with devices that are Universal Mass Storage (UMS) compatible. Are all enclosures capable of doing this, or would it be specific to the brand/model of the enclosure? I'm hoping someone else has done this or has experience with this. I'm going to Micro Center later to see what they have.

[GTConversion]

Every enclosure I've ever seen was UMS capable.. it seems like a no brainer, to me. I don't know why any enclosure manufacturer would develop a proprietary non-SCSI interface. If all else fails, check the box. They should list UMS complaince in their specs..

You may want to think about heat, though. Heat is a huge culprit in HD failure, and in the direct sun a car's glovebox could get awfully hot. Might want to consider something you can pull out when you get outta the car, if you weren't already thinking along those lines.

[Renesis Rx]

Yeah any ol' HDD enclosure will work. Once that USB cable is connected, you're in business. I second the heat issue also.

[dommo_g]

I have a Pioneer deck in my Neon with a USB port. I was thinking of doing this because I have a laptop drive USB enclosure. The only thing I thought MIGHT be a problem is not enough juice from the USB port to power the drive. My enclosure came with an adapter that basically lets you hook it up to two USB ports at the same time in case one port doesn't give enough power to run the drive. I think it uses one for power and data transfer, and the second for power only. Since the deck only has one USB port, that wouldn't really work. So I never got motivated to actually try it, just saying that it could be an issue. I guess it depends on the power demands of the drive and enclosure. Keep us updated, because I'd like to know if it works without any problems.

[Rich]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I found a decent UMS compliant enclosure that is ventilated well. Cost me $5.99 at Micro Center. I'm formatting the drive using FAT32, so once that is done I'll put some music on it and try things out.

Dommo, the case has a single Mini-USB female connector that provides both power and data transfer. My deck has only 1 USB connection. This is probably sufficient because it's only a 2.5" drive that spins at 5400 rpm. If one USB port isn't sufficient for your setup, they do sell a USB 2-1 splitter. I'll keep you updated on the status.

EDIT: I'm using FAT32 because there are no permissions or security issues like NTFS. Also, all thumb drives and SD cards I've used as UMS have been natively FAT32.

[Rich]

Well, it didn't work. The deck doesn't output enough power through the USB to spin the hard drive. I'm just going to be using a large SD card or thumb drive instead.

[Rich]

So, it actually does work. I picked up this external hard drive that has a power adapter, http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/external-drives/ministation/hd-pfu2-ministation-turbousb/ . I got the 320GB model, and a car power adapter with a USB port. Then I used the USB power cable that came with the unit. The hard drive spins up and is read by the deck with no problems.

The unit cost me $80 at Micro Center, the car power adapter was $10.

[dommo_g]

That's exactly what I had suspected. That sucks, because you went from spending $6 to spending $90.