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      04-15-2008, 10:36 PM   #1
jeremyc74
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iPod vs. USB or Hard Drive

So for you guys that have the USB option...do you see any real advantage to having an iPod instead of a USB drive or hard drive?

I keep all my music organized in iTunes right now, and have for years, but I've recently converted it all over to MP3 so I can use it on my Windows based smart phone. I still like iTunes, but I'm sort of on the fence about which way to go for the car. I like being able to set up playlists in iTunes and then use them in on the iPod, but at the same time, it's a lot more expensive than a large USB drive, and the only place I'm really going to use it is in the BMW.

Is the iPod a waste of money when the USB drive will store the same media? Or is the functionality of the iPod usefull enough to justify the cost? Thoughts?
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      04-17-2008, 07:38 AM   #2
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I'm wondering this to... Any thoughts guys?

Thanks!
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      04-17-2008, 07:54 AM   #3
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I'm waiting for my replacement USB HDD to some from Newegg, but in the meanwhile, I'm using my ipod. It works fine, but I have two issues with it.

First, I forget it's there, and leave it in the car, only realizing it when I'm away from my car, and want to listen to my ipod. That's a nuisance.

Secondly, You simply cannot scroll through albums or artists, when you have 6000 songs. Even with iDrive, it would be monotonous. I find myself using shuffle on genres, but even that isn't fun.

What my ultimate plan will be, is something I read on e90post. Take the HDD, make 27 folders... one for each letter of the alphabet, and a numeric one, and put each artist's folders their corresponding starting letter. That way, i only have to scroll thru 27 folders to get to artists, and I can easily shuffle an artist that way, which I like to do.

I also want to really update my id3 info for artists to be more observant as to what genre I assign them to. I have far too many genres to scroll through. (that would help both the ipod and the USB drive though)...
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      04-17-2008, 08:22 AM   #4
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With the price of thumb drives I will be getting a large (16 or 32gb) thumb drive or portable HD and leaving it in the car, which IMO is the easiest way to go... For me I see no benefit of using an ipod over a thumbdrive.
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      04-17-2008, 08:33 AM   #5
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Playlists

I have an old 40-gig click-wheel iPod in my 135i, and I just leave it there.

I prefer it to a flash drive because of the "playlist" feature.

Immediately upon connecting the iPod, the BMW syncs songs and playlists. And I have a number of playlists. Many were created for "mix tape" CD burns and have themes -- driving, summertime, acoustic, barbecue, oldies, a particular special event, whatever.

With iDrive it's fast & easy to pick a playlist & go. Random shuffling is OK, but sometimes I want what I want.
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      04-17-2008, 10:52 AM   #6
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There are m3u playlist exporters & converters for iTunes so the playlist issue is a non-factor unless you change your playlists multiple times a day.

From there it's simply personal preference. I'm personally going to go the USB memory-stick route for several reasons:
- A 8- or 16-Gig USB memory-stick holds plenty of music.
- I won't worry about it overheating in the sun.
- It has no spinning parts to worry about on a bumpy road. (The iPod can definitely handle the bumps but I worry about some of the dirt cheap external drives people have been using for this)
- It won't need to be recharged like the ipod.
- I won't accidentally forget it - it stays in the car while the ipod comes with me.
- If someone breaks into the car it's much cheaper to replace than an ipod. They might even ignore it - who wants to steal a USB memory stick?
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      04-17-2008, 11:00 AM   #7
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I download Podcast's daily, So I think I'll go the iPod route.
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      04-17-2008, 03:10 PM   #8
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I think I am going to do both the hard drive and the iPod. I will use the iPod for podcasts and the hard drive for music. I have an 8 Gb Nano that stays in my current car all of the time and then an 8Gb iPhone that I sync podcasts to. I will use one or the other for podcasts but I want more music than that. It does sound like finding music will be easier on a hard drive than the iPod (one thing I hate about iPods is their inability to use folders) and I can have significantly more music in my car.
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      04-17-2008, 03:28 PM   #9
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You can use both the USB with a HDD, and use your ipod via the aux-in for pocasts. You won't be able to control the ipod with teh car, and it's will be via the headphone jack, but who cares? You're listeing to people talking anyway. No need for lossless or 256kbps vbr digital recordings for people talking.
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      04-17-2008, 04:09 PM   #10
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I bought a 16GB stick off of newegg. it even lights up amber, matches the color of the gauges perfect.
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      04-17-2008, 04:28 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Impulse View Post
I bought a 16GB stick off of newegg. it even lights up amber, matches the color of the gauges perfect.

Ooooh! Mood lighting! ...in case you need mood lighting in your.... lap? :iono:
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      04-17-2008, 05:48 PM   #12
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Going with the 16GB USB drive myself so as not to risk a pricey device with moving parts like a hdd in the car. Just got it today, in fact... $33 shipped from these guys on ebay.
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      04-17-2008, 08:53 PM   #13
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cracka,

thats a great price but it does not say its speed, well apart from the USB 2.0 part...
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      04-17-2008, 09:05 PM   #14
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(((- It won't need to be recharged like the ipod.)))

The iPod charges in place.

But this is a question to which there's really no wrong answer.
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      04-17-2008, 09:40 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivid View Post
cracka,

thats a great price but it does not say its speed, well apart from the USB 2.0 part...
It's about what I expected... writes about 3MB/sec, reads about 10MB/sec. Not the swiftest, but plenty fast for streaming digital audio.
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      04-18-2008, 12:37 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roadburn View Post
I have an old 40-gig click-wheel iPod in my 135i, and I just leave it there.

I prefer it to a flash drive because of the "playlist" feature.

Immediately upon connecting the iPod, the BMW syncs songs and playlists. And I have a number of playlists. Many were created for "mix tape" CD burns and have themes -- driving, summertime, acoustic, barbecue, oldies, a particular special event, whatever.

With iDrive it's fast & easy to pick a playlist & go. Random shuffling is OK, but sometimes I want what I want.
cant you just make a playlist with some media player and save it onto the drive? You can then recall that as playlists possibly?
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      04-18-2008, 06:06 AM   #17
jeremyc74
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Thanks for all the info guys. I think I'm going to try this with one of my standard 2G thumb drives and see how it works out, and then decide if the iPod is worth having or not. I used to use the Smart Playlist feature in iTunes a lot, so that alone may make it worth buying another iPod for me. It will be used almost strictly in the car though, because I use about 4Gs of memory on my Smartphone when I'm travelling, which is better than carrying around two devices.

I've got so much misc. crap in my music collection that I don't really think I want it all in my car, so maybe just an 8G iPod and call it a day.
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      04-18-2008, 12:44 PM   #18
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iTunes/iPod are proprietary, MP3 is the standard and universal.

Not hard to figure which way to go.
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      04-20-2008, 01:07 PM   #19
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One annoying thing I've noticed using a hard drive versus an ipod is how long it takes to load all the id3 tag info. With the ipod it's loaded right away, but with a hard drive it takes 5-10 minutes to load everything.

From what I can tell it scans the entire hard drive each time the car is turned on to get the tag info, even if nothing has changed on the HD.
You can still play music by navigating the directories, but you can't search by artist or use playlists until the entire HD has been scanned.
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      08-09-2008, 06:57 PM   #20
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I bought a 32 gig thumb drive and it works great. A couple of caveats: if your music is high bit-rate, then be sure your thumb drive is a fast one (mine is a Patriot 180X speed); if you use a slower drive, it will hang on some of the music ...I know because I tried two different drives which either did not work or worked most of the time, but not all the time until I ordered the Patriot from Newegg. BMW does not recommend the use of hard drives according to my owners manual. Finally, for what it is worth, you are not listening to your music digitally if you use an iPod. The artist and other info is sent over the digital part of the y connector, but due to DRM restrictions the actual music is sent over the auxilliary (analog) connector. If you use the USB thumb drive, then your music is sent to radio digitally. I think that long term, the usb will hold up better than the ipod leaving it in the car all the time.
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      08-09-2008, 08:38 PM   #21
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I bought a 10 gig ipod hhd off ebay for like $20 and I bought an case for it for about $15. So for about 35 bucks I have a 10g HHD drive that stays in the car.
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      08-09-2008, 09:28 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketpop View Post
I bought a 10 gig ipod hhd off ebay for like $20 and I bought an case for it for about $15. So for about 35 bucks I have a 10g HHD drive that stays in the car.
:w00t:

I plan on doing something very similar. Hence why I got the iPod Y-cable from Dan @ United.
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