I would imagine there would not be a problem so long as the USB port has enough power to power the drive.

One thing to be aware of, however, is that using a hard drive while moving is a terrible idea. The heads will be thrown all over the place and this could cause data loss; you may also notice the life of the device is significantly shortened.

So long as the drive is not bouncing around it will be fine, the actual G loads drives are rated to is more than you would see in any non-rally car type application. Vibration may be an issue, but I had a 2.5" IDE drive in a franken-carputer for ages and it was all good till the velcro let go and it started sliding around in the boot hitting the sides. That killed it.

Given the above comments about movement and vibration etc, why not try an external USB solid state drive?

Sorry I was thinking of SSD not an HDD.  Edit: is there a difference between 'portable' and 'external' SSDs

ghettomaster:

 

I would imagine there would not be a problem so long as the USB port has enough power to power the drive.

 

Could I use 12v powered USB hub to boost power into the external SSD?

How the stereo accesses the folder structure in drive might be an issue.

A.

afe66:

 

How the stereo accesses the folder structure in drive might be an issue.

 

A.

 

This.

I had a car stereo that allowed a USB cable out the back of it which I ran through to the glove box so that I could hide it all.  I could plug a USB HDD into it and it worked fine as it supported NTFS. In the end I just ended up with a USB stick with a bunch of music on it as the HDD was mostly empty!

nzkc:

 

afe66:

 

How the stereo accesses the folder structure in drive might be an issue.

 

A.

 

 

This.

 

I had a car stereo that allowed a USB cable out the back of it which I ran through to the glove box so that I could hide it all.  I could plug a USB HDD into it and it worked fine as it supported NTFS. In the end I just ended up with a USB stick with a bunch of music on it as the HDD was mostly empty!

 

So I need to find out what file structure the stereo uses and then find an external drive with the same file structure?

Or can I formate the drive to whatever the stereo uses?

I know the stereo works with a FAT-32 USB drive, not sure what else.

Te idea with an external drive is more storage space so I can play better quality files.

MikeAqua:

 

 

 

So I need to find out what file structure the stereo uses and then find an external drive with the same file structure?

 

Yes

MikeAqua:

 

Or can I formate the drive to whatever the stereo uses?

 

I know the stereo works with a FAT-32 USB drive, not sure what else.

 

Yes - though this may limit its capacity depending on exactly what the stereo supports.

MikeAqua:

 

Te idea with an external drive is more storage space so I can play better quality files.

 

You can get a fair amount of songs on a 32GB stick still :)

The user interface of car stereos with USB doesnt really support lots of files, on the ones I have tried its a basic next and previous folder, and then a next and previous track. No indexing/seaching etc on it makes finding what you want on a disk of 5000 songs a real chore.

Why not just use a phone to play music on? Decent UI, can stream, sync with wifi etc.

I have recently seen quite cheap 128gb thumb drives.

That would hold more than enough music!

richms:

 

Why not just use a phone to play music on? Decent UI, can stream, sync with wifi etc.

 

This was triggered by me playing a song on my phone via 3.5mm lead connected to the stereo, and then playing the same song off a CD in the same stereo.  The CD just sounded much, much better, and I realised I am over lossy MP3 files.  Better files require more space.

Using the phone (S4) : -

1) Storage space - limited to 64GB on micro SD.

2) Sounds terrible - a combined result of storage space limiting the size (quality) of audio files and the S4 doesn't play music very well anyway.

3) Streaming e.g. spotify isn't an option where I do a lot of my driving (no mobile coverage), and the stereo doesn't have bluetooth for phone to stereo streaming.

I think you will find you arent limited to 64gig on micro SD, just that is all they support. I have a 200 in my crap phone that said it only supported 32 gig, that is because it doesnt do exfat which is needed for official sdxc support.

Does the stereo in the car even play lossless files off USB?

dickytim: The 3.5mm jack is the issue here more than MP3 playback

Yes, cant wait for the completly non standard socket to die off and digital transfer over USB or something to become the norm. My cheap stereo will do it off an iDevice, and control it but not androids which is annoying. I just stick with shyte bluetooth since im in a car not doing critical listening. Hell, my speakers dont match since I replaced the stuffed one and it was such an ordeal that the other one from the pair is sitting in a cupboard at home and I will only bother if the other one dies ;)