Musings on AMI and HDDs

[Hippogriff]

Anyone reading this forum will know my point of view on the AMI and USB hard disks... I think Audi have missed out on a great opportunity to remove the stigma of iPods from being inexorably linked to their brand (Jop takes a moment to consider replying! ). That said, it is really all just starting out, I guess, and the fact that we can connect iPods, USB disks, sticks, SD cards and, yes, even good old CDs to our car is still pretty cool.

I, myself, love the USB hard disk route because of its simplicity and its openness... by that, I mean I hook it up to my computer and it sees a disk - I don't need an application to move things around or see the storage. Also, the disks, I feel, are much more moveable - by that, I mean I can just repurpose a disk when I want to use a new one with either more storage or a smaller footprint. So, with the introduction of all these 2.5" USB-powered hard disks I thought it was my nirvana.

Sadly, I (admittedly) ran into a few problems... with me having over 22,000 songs all in 320kbps CBR MP3 format, that meant I needed over 200GB of space, so I had bought a[nother] 320GB Western Digital My Passport - imagine my horror when I found out the AMI can only see 4,000 songs. It seems the perfect size (capacity) for a USB attached disk is around 40GB - if you assume that an MP3 song is 10mb in size... 10 x 4,000 = around 40GB - much more capacity than that and you're wasting space. 40GB disks are harder to buy these days - old hat.

Secondly, but not a massive issue... the AMI systems that come with the snazzy netting, instead of the tray, are actually just a bit too small to fit the 2.5" My Passport disks in - they do go in, but they are not snugly fitting into the rails, which are obviously designed to fit an iPod into - still better than the tray solution, though, as I actually have a glovebox.

So, I had been thinking about this... I have disks all over the house, so me buying a new one is no big deal. And I saw the Samsung S1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B002HR5P1S/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1254056624&sr=8-1&condition=new) which is a 120GB 1.8" drive and would be perfect for the car I was thinking - not a bad price either.

Then, of course, I had heard about the Audi Centenary Hard Disk - celebrating 100 years of Audi, to be limited to 5,000 run and sold by Audi Centres - that was going to be 250GB in size and was also said to be "fully tested for capacity with the AMI" and could also "playback video / movies"... however, further investigation directly with Audi has found that these claims are not true, not at all. I have informed Audi they need to consider their claims before people start to get excited by this.

However, I'm in no rush - the WD My Passport in the car is doing an OK job at the moment (but I'm wondering if a 120GB disk would be quicker to initialise than a 320GB disk - even if there's only the same data on there) and I'm musing to myself...

"Should I plump for a Samsung S1 (or similiar) right now... or is SSD technology really going to come along in leaps and bounds (and price) in the next few months?"

So, to my question... has anyone on here had any experience with SSD technology in the larger sizes yet? They should be very fast, they should be very quiet and they should be very green, by using a bare minimum of power - as well as being very suited to the 100% read nature of the AMI. Are there pieces of SSD kit available today that have a USB interface? Google has failed to turn up anything obvious this morning (maybe I'm just sleepy)...

[ytsud69]

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2008/09/05/...d-state-drive/

http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/s...SSD-128-S.html

As you can see there are some available. But in time the drives will get bigger and cheaper.
Patience Grasshopper!

[Hippogriff]

Interesting. The Oyen ones still appear to be 2.5" in size - which doesn't really suit, I think, although everything else about them looks good. I've had experience of Buffalo kit before and they're OK but not a brand I'd choose if I had a choice. The sizes they're offering right now is just about right for the AMI though - currently there's no point looking for a 250GB and above.

Maybe the Samsung S1, or Toshiba StorE, would prove a good stop-gap and free up the 320GB My Passport that's currently in the car for more applicable uses. I'll continue to check what other 1.8" options there are...

[ScottyUK]

I know we've had a giggle encouraging you to get an iPod (yep 160Gb version fits in net perfectly) but I do understand why you'd prefer a HDD. With you music software etc etc I can see that having to use another application would be a pain.

If I had any confidence resolving this inside 12 monts then I'd have held off from buying the iPod. Unfortuantely I don't so Iwent for the simple fix and now have allmy music to hand.

I really wish you well in taking on Audi. After 8+ years in their cars, I guess I've been beaten

[Hippogriff]

Actually... my attitude is very slowly changing... not towards iPods but it's changing as to whether I actually want all of my music in the car (I do have some crap, after all). At first I was 100% sure that I did... I didn't want to pick and choose what I wanted in there, I just wanted to take the drive out every now and again and do a simple sync. operation to the disk, taking all my latest stuff, and then plug it back in.

However, having learned the hard way about how time consuming it is to actually navigate across the many hundreds of Artists, and then Albums, I have almost fully decided the best approach is going to be:

1. Keep all my "definite" music on the Jukebox - then it's always there and ready to go - this is my favourites, stuff that I'll hardly ever want to remove... there's space here for many Albums.
2. On the USB disk, I'll continually sync. the stuff that I'm getting to like, or the new stuff or stuff that I can take or leave... there's another 4,000 songs / 400 Albums here.

This way, when I'm in the car, I know where all my favourite stuff is and I know where my latest stuff is - or stuff I'll listen to every now and again. I'll also organise the hard disk stuff just like the Jukebox organises its stuff (so copying the arrangement the ID3 tags create)... \Artist\Album\Tracks so they're both similar in appearance.

I've just ordered one of these Samsung S1 120GB 1.8" drives from Amazon... I'm tempted to see what it is like, compared to the WD My Passport.

I don't see Audi changing much, quickly... however, even they have got to realise no-one can even buy a 40GB drive these days. Consider this 1.8" I'm buying... I think it comes in 120GB and 250GB... that's 1.8"!!! I think they might be starting to realise this with their extremely strange attempt at the Audi Centenary Drive... what a ****-up.

[troc]

I've decided to use a couple of 8Gig SD cards and the jukebox - I've put a selection of our favourite music and audiobooks on the jukebox and I'll use the SD cards to rotate 'optional' stuff

Meanwhile I'll simply plug the iPhone in when I want to listen to a podcast or something.

[AndyH123]

I too have recently revisited the concept of having ALL my music on the HD.

I've now carved my collection into two root folders, one being for archive stuff I know I'll hardly listen to or am 99% likely to skip on shuffle. Then I just copy the other folder for the car.


This thing about the 4,000 track limit? I'm a bit confused. I've got around 80Gb of 192kbps .wma on my western digital. Can't say I've noticed a limit.. ok, it's slow to move through the folders, but I must have way more than 4,000 tracks on there. Is this something they introduced in the newer MMI?

[Hippogriff]

Can you count your files on the disk and let me know, either by right-clicking on the root folder and selecting "properties" or a DOS "dir /s" from the folder where your music is, letting it run and seeing how many files and folders there are?

In my MMI 3G, as I go past the 4,000 mark the folders are there and I then see "no playable media" when I go into the folder. If this doesn't happen to you on the later folders, and you have more than 4,000 songs, then I guess I'm limited in a way that you aren't.

The 4,000 asset (song or directory) limit is also documented in the manual. Is it in your manual? Bit of a bummer if Audi introduced this limit recently.

[AndyH123]

Will get back to you asap..

[BMWBig6]

2G MMI, and I have way over 4,000 songs on my HDD. More like 23,000. All recognized.