Car Audio Systems, USB access and onboard memory; repost (buy, replace, capacity)

[Shibumi]

(I had this over in the hobby sub-forum, but someone there said it would probably be better here.)

I'd like to replace the defective original combination 6-CD changer and radio head/tape player in my car. I was going to go with one that had a USB connection in the front faceplate to allow a hand-held remote to control the MP-3 I-Tunes player I'd just plug in. I also thought I would want a single CD player, just in case, but obviously that's also old tech now.

Apparently you can transport your entire home musical library, or a subset of it, on one of those small hand-held USB flash drive devices, and I wondered if there are car audio units that will allow you download your favorite musical libraries into the car unit itself, then you'd remove the flash drive, eliminating the need for C-Ds and their inherent mechanical problems (dust, scratches, storage, sun warping, theft, etc.).

Any ideas or brands and model numbers you might have experienced?. PS: I have a "double DIN" opening if I also pull the original radio tape player head. Toss that relic, right?

[K'ledgeBldr]

I've fiddled around with something similar-
I ended up with the first option at the bottom.
You could take a normal 3.5" Hard drive in a external case. The car's stereo has to have a USB connector on it. But the only way you can get it to work is you have to format the hard drive to FAT32 file system. Its quick and painless and you can do it through Windows or MAC. Leaving the drive in the external case makes life easier since you can just hot-swap from your computer to your car. Once formatted to FAT32, put whatever songs you want on it, have a 100 watt DC/AC inverter in your car, plug in, plug USB in, turn it on, and it should read the disk.
Or you could do this:
Pioneer DEH-P90HDD CD/MP3/Hard Drive Receiver with CD Changer Controls at Crutchfield.com (it's been discontinued)
or this:
Sony MEX-1HD CD Receiver/Hard Drive Recorder at Crutchfield.com (this is also discontinued)

Maybe this one-
iPod fits inside the unit:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_158DSX3...eceiver+(no+CD)

[hoffdano]

Don't over think this. I like the USB idea in general. I would much rather put music on a $15 flash drive than a $100 iPod. Buy a unit with a USB interface. These will play music straight off the flash drive or via control of an iPod (most units will do this). If you don't want to leave your flash drive stuck in the unit, run a USB extension cable into a compartment.

Quite a few of these units have rear USB connection, so the cable extension is easy to do without leaving it visible.

[TheViking85]

There's units with hard drives available at Cruthfield I think, I seem to remember seeing one.

If not, there are hundreds with both front and rear facing USB connections, depending on how hidden you want the system to be.

[iTsLiKeAnEgG]

I love having a USB connection on my unit. I have a double din unit with 7" screen and the typical cd/dvd/mp3 playback along with an sd card slot hidden behind the fold down screen and a usb connection on the rear of the unit with an extension hidden on the passenger side. I just plug my 16GB flash drive in and off I go. Alternatively my unit also allows me to use bluetooth for wireless playback directly from my phone so I have a bit more flexibility. Oddly enough I did try plugging in my 500GB portable hard drive into the usb extension and it wasn't registered by the unit. I'm assuming it isn't capable of addressing that kind of capacity.