I've posted this question before and had some response, however the problem persists and it's annoying as hell, I did search but didn't find the answer I was looking for . Can anyone tell me what is a reasonable amount of time for the USB drive to load or read. If I use a puny 1gb drive it's almost right away using a 64gb with maybe 9gb it takes an hour anything more than 9gb and it's unusable anyone else have this issue. I have HK audio no connect/nav

 

I'm using a 16gb stick and it loads right away.

 

Maybe I'll try a 16gb
Thanks

 

Get another stick!

 

I will try a 16gb and see if it works any better than the 32 and 64
Thanks

 

According to post #5 over here, you need FAT32 format and are limited to 32GB. Hopefully the 16GB will work for you!

 

I'm formatted FAT32 even using a 32gb disc, it's been plugged in for days and it's only accessing maybe 20 songs and even then only plays about a minute and then starts fading in and out and then out, hopefully the 16gb will help

 

Please excuse my verbosity, but I'd like to get all this information "out there" to save others time in testing.

If I understand things correctly, speed, features and capabilities depend on the revision of the USB audio computer, or as BMW calls it, a MULF (not to be confused with MILF), the successor to the ULF which was Bluetooth only. There are significant differences between the various revisions of this embedded computer, and how to tell the difference between them is beyond my scope.

I have a 2010 R56, and use a 512GB USB Drive. I store around 480GB (and around 18,000) WMA Lossless files, this takes about 50 seconds between the time the car begins loading the directory structure and the time the audio can begin playing. To mitigate these effects, I usually hit the unlock button on my way out to the car, as soon as the unlock button is hit, the computer begins loading the USB drive.

The MINI documented maximum as around 18,000 audio files, but I imagine that number is flexible and depending on audio file metadata, and other factors. MINI has also documented that up to four USB drives at the same time (via a USB hub) is supported, I have found this to be completely untrue in my car; only one USB drive is supported at a time in my car with a USB hub.

Now, in a more recent a 2012 loaner I received, my USB drive loaded nearly instantaneously (around 5-10 seconds), but lacked WMA Lossless support. I believe the USB load time decrease is due to a much speedier processor in the later revision and not an effect of lack of supported files, as it still needs to go through through each file to determine support.

As a side note, you can achieve large FAT32 USB partitions with the HP USB format utility. FAT32 does not reach it's actual technical limit until around 2 TB, depending on sector size. The limit was a limit imposed by Microsoft's format utility, rumor being as a way to get people to move to exFAT (and make some more $$$ on patents). If you format on Linux, it can easily be done with standard tools, and I imagine Apple products would format in the same fashion.

 

So is my issue a software or hardware problem? also I use Mac OSX so I'm not sure the HP utility you suggested will work , files are MP3 it should be a quick and easy thing but it's clearly not. I understand little about computers etc and I appreciate the time taken to explain the possible issues.

 

I've never touched a Mac, so I'm of no use there. If I were you, USB drives are cheap, I'd start there. Make sure you have (minimally) a USB 2 drive, if not they're cheap, get another. Format it yourself using your Mac, throw some MP3s on it, see if you can get it running. If it doesn't get working normally from there, maybe you could find a Windows computers, or the like? This could be a car hardware problem, but I would start by doubting it; it's a little early for it to have failed. By chance, do you have the USB stick model # on you? That's really the only way I'd be effective at helping from here.

 

To format a USB drive as FAT32 in OS X:

1. Launch Disk Utility. It's in Applications -> Utilities.
2. Select your USB drive from the left column
3. Select the Erase tab
4. Change Format to "MS-DOS (FAT)"
5. Click Erase

though if the disk is already fat32, this probably won't help.

 

I can tell you I have had this working at one point with about 9gb on a 64gb Transcend drive, it seemed a waste ,I got greedy and and loaded it up to no avail, did the same with a 32gb PNY, do you have reason to believe the brand of drive could cause me some problem

 

It actually has more to do with the model of the USB disk. I usually search out reviews before I buy hardware. The main thing you would look for with this USB disk is a fast read speed.

Basically it goes like this. You hit the door unlock button. MULF computer is powered on, the computer in the MULF computer boots in around 2 seconds. After that, the computer opens and begins reading the entire directory and file structure on the USB disk. Sometimes the computer knows it doesn't have to do a full read (the USB hasn't been removed), so that explains why it goes a little faster sometimes.

This is where the read speed comes in. On top of reading directory structure, it also reads the metadata, this is also known as audio file tags. These will probably bog down the process, as well.

If you were to clear your audio file tags before writing them to the USB drive, the USB would have less to read before it begins to play your music, regardless of the read speed. So between a faster USB drive read speed and clearing your tags, those are the best optimizations I could recommend.

I forgot to mention the tag clearing thing in the beginning, I made a program a while ago to handle all that for me.

 

Any idea how I access he metadata , I don't want to mess up my iTunes library. So I have the files I want in a folder on my desktop short of going through them one by one and deleteing cover art etc , I don't know how to edit the files