Biggest USB Thumb Drive that works on Honda Infotainment Unit

[SCOPESYS]

USB Music Player FAQ ( maintained by Scopesys)
Note: This 1st Post will be updated to reflect new information as it becomes available.

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(9/18/2018)

What is the biggest size USB drive that you have managed to get to work reliably on the 2018 Honda head Units.


So far I have tried:-
1 Gig USB 2.0 "ebay - cheap- china drives" -- either unrecognized, or audio skips

16 GB USB 3.0 Cruzer Glide - works very well - no issues -- fast

64 GB USB 3.0 Cruzer Glide - Forced to FAT32 format (= Bigger cluster size than standard) - Not recognized
9/19/2018
Formatted 64GB drive to FAText. Put into Car. The used head Unit to reformat the USB drive. Now correctly formatted to FAT32 by Android OS.
Drive can be read.written to by PC (Xp & W10), and the audio file are now visable in the Car, and play !!
Next step: Try same method with 128Gb & 256Gb drives

32 GB USB 3.0 Cruzer Glide (Standard Fat32 format) --- works well - no issues - fast

32 GB USB 3.0 Micro Center (generic) $4-$5 (Standard Fat32 format) --- works well - no issues - fast

The only info I have found from Honda is "not all USB drives are compatible"
The only info I have got from my Dealer "We are not computer people"

=============================================================
(9/18/2018)
SORTING FOLDERS and FILES on USB drive for cleaner display on Honda HU

WARNING: Be carefull... using CMD prompt with care.

Make 100% sure you are executing these command on your USB Flash Drive, and not on any other drive on your computer !!
Be particularly careful using the "del" command (Delete command)

YOU DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK - if in doubt DO NOT do it !!!


So you have put 1000's of songs onto your USB drive, but when you come to play them, TWO Problems

(1) Some don't Play
(2) The Folders and files are a total mess.. no specific order .. can't find anything.

Solutions: (1) Some don't Play
You need to remove (delete) any non playable files from your USB drive

The only files that will play are mp3, mp4a and wav ( may be others ?)
So, how do you FIND , and then delete any non playing files ?

(a) Find any files that are not mp3
Under dos cmd, go to root of your USB drive, and use the command

dir /s /b /a-d | findstr /v /r ".*\.mp3" > found.txt​

This will give you a file called "found.txt" which will list all the non mp3 files.

(b) Then look at found.txt in Notepad, and make a note of any non-playing file types .. ie .avi .wma etc

Should not be many as you have removed any .mp3 files from this listing
Then type

del /s *.avi ​

to delete all .avi files on the current Dos selected drive (Your USB Drive)

Do for all found non paying file types.

Finally delete the found.txt file ie del /s *.txt

NOW all you should have on your USB drive just playable files.

Solution (2) Folders and files are in Random order
To sort Folders and files into Alphabetical order on the Flash drive (so that Honda USB Player will display them in Alphabetical order) , you can use the windows Program "DriveSort"

https://techmadeplain.com/2014/how-to-sort-music-flash-drive-car-stereo/
(Full pictorial instruction on above web page)

Now, when you put your USB Flash drive back into your car, at least everything will be sorted Alphabetically, - Both the Folders, and the files within those folders

(9/20/2018)
Confirmed: There is a 700 Folder max limit on the 9" Head Units USB player.

If each ALBUM is in its own folder, and each album has approx 10 mp3 songs, then 700 albums is about 32GB.
32GB is also the max size that Windows allows a fat32 format, although other formatter can format Fat32 onto bigger drives, and windows can then still be able to read and write to that drive.. just that windows cannot format a drive to Fat32 on a drive bigger than 32Gb, without using some non microsoft formatting program.

The point being, with the 700 Folder limit, and using a folder per album, there is NO POINT in trying to use a drive greater than 32GB, as only about 32Gb would hold accessible music.

CONCLUSION: If you want more than 700 albums, use multiple 32GB drives.

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[BoxsterSteve]

I have all my music as MP3 files on a 1TB stick.
I had to format it as FAT32 because the car can’t read the eFAT format of large stick drives.

 

[Almostfast]

I have a 128gb in mine. Just like Steve said above. Needs formatting to fat32.

 

[Almostfast]

HP USB disk format tool. Sorry I really don't remember where I downloaded it from, but when you put it in google it brings up a ton of results.

 

[Almostfast]

Thanks ...
I have tried 2 different makes of 64Gb USB flash drives, and neither will format Fat32 using that tool.
Do you have a USB Thumb Drive , or a larger physical USB Solid State Drive ?
What make is your drive please ?

It's one of the tiny SanDisk usb drives. I believe it's a cruzer ultra fit usb 3.0... I'll try to remember to check when I get in my car tomorrow.

 

[SCOPESYS]

It's one of the tiny SanDisk usb drives. I believe it's a cruzer ultra fit usb 3.0... I'll try to remember to check when I get in my car tomorrow.

Thank you .. are you sure it is 128GB and not just a 32GB drive. ?
Also, what model & year Honda is it fitted in. ?

The biggest I can get to work is a 32GB ... which, in theory, is the Biggest that can be formatted to FAT32 (under WINDOWS)

Maybe that HP format tool formatted your 128GB drive to 32KB sectors

Just found ---
For ANDROID However :-

Recommended Cluster Size

According to Hitachi,
the recommended cluster size for a 16GB FAT32 partition is 4KB,
the recommended cluster size for a 64GB FAT32 partition is 16KB,
the recommended cluster size for a 128GB FAT32 partition is 32KB
and the recommended cluster size for a 256GB partition is 64KB.

Note that some versions of Windows prior to Windows XP, including Windows 95 and Windows 98, don't support cluster sizes above 32KB.

------------
Maybe, you have your 128GB drive formatted with 32KB clusters (by that HP formatting tool)

I'll try FORCE formatting my 256GB drive to the 64KB cluster size as noted above for Android, and see what happens.
If I do this, hopefully my Windows PC will still be able to read/write to it.

I read somewhere that Microsoft put a limit on Fat32 in windows for big drives, to promote NTFS.

If I can put a FULL 256GB drive into the Honda Si, then I should have enough music !. (approx 128,000 songs)

 

[Almostfast]

I was wrong, its not a sandisk, its a samsung

I couldn't find it in my amazon orders since I ordered it two years ago...

My car is a 2018 sport touring

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-128G...=1537361454&sr=8-3&keywords=samsung+usb+drive

 

[CivicBuff]

128GB Sandisk formatted as fat32 and loaded with over 7000 songs. It worked in my 2018 but it only saw the first 700 folders.
I returned it since I wanted all or nothing.

 

[SCOPESYS]

128GB Sandisk formatted as fat32 and loaded with over 7000 songs. It worked in my 2018 but it only saw the first 700 folders.
I returned it since I wanted all or nothing.

Interesting :-

I finally got a 64Gb drive to run... formatting it on an Android device to 64Gb Fat32.
Next 128Gb or 256Gb -- the we see what #folder limits I get...
Wonder if it's a FOLDER limit or a SONG Limit -- or both ..

IN any case 64GB of songs is an ENORMOUS amount of songs to manage, especially on a Folder based Player like the one in the Honda.
Maybe limiting the size to a manageable amount is the way to go, and have more than one drive.

I fear spending hours/days setting up a 256Gb drive, only to have it corrupt, and losse all the data ... Flash Drives are not that reliable at the best of times -- in a Car environment, I imagine the reliability is even worse.
Need to make Image backups of the Flash drive back on the PC -- just in case !@!!

 

[SCOPESYS]

128GB Sandisk formatted as fat32 and loaded with over 7000 songs. It worked in my 2018 but it only saw the first 700 folders.
I returned it since I wanted all or nothing.

700 Folder limit confirmed

 

[thatboysofly]

I use 128GB Scandisk. Works perfectly. All of my folders have been recognized. All of my songs also. I also have about 35 movies on the USB and they play perfectly also.

 

[dc2turbo]

it has no limit
i hooked my 8tb usb HD onto it

 

[SCOPESYS]

I use 128GB Scandisk. Works perfectly. All of my folders have been recognized. All of my songs also. I also have about 35 movies on the USB and they play perfectly also.

You say "all" your folders ... how many is "all" ???

The 2018 SI definitely has a 700 folder limit in the Honda Audio "File" Music Player.

What car are you referring to, and how do you play MOVIES ?
Are you Honda Hacked ???

 

[BarracksSi]

... and how do you play MOVIES ?

Use the Gallery app, no need for hacking. But I think it plays video files only while parked if you're not hacked.

 

[Type Rocket]

Just ran across this thread and wanted to consolidate and add a little for the next person. I purchased a 256GB USB 3.0 generic flash drive from MicroCenter that was already formatted FAT32 with 32K clusters. I copied a couple of albums onto it and tried it out. For about 3 seconds the display read No Data Found, and then the first song started playing. I would imagine that larger catalogs will result in longer delays for the initial load. So the head unit is not super picky about USB branding, but I would definitely steer away from slower USB 2.0 drives. Also, the RUFUS (google it) utility can be used to format FAT32 if needed.

To minimize your total number of folders due to the 700 folder limit, you'll want to eliminate unnecessary organizational folders like Sudio/Live or CD1/CD2 and just stick to Artist\Album.

I noticed that no album art displayed, even though there was a "folder.jpg" in each album folder that most MP3 players will use as album art. So I used MP3tag to store the art in the ID3 tag info for each song and voila, album art! I also noticed a few albums where the art was not appearing and thanks to this thread https://www.civicx.com/threads/usb-music-drive-missing-artwork-on-1-track.28102/ I was able to compress the size of the art and the artwork appeared. Also, wanted to re-mention the sorting utility that the OP provided, since it is kind of buried in his long post:

Solution (2) Folders and files are in Random order
To sort Folders and files into Alphabetical order on the Flash drive (so that Honda USB Player will display them in Alphabetical order) , you can use the windows Program "DriveSort"
https://techmadeplain.com/2014/how-to-sort-music-flash-drive-car-stereo/
(Full pictorial instruction on above web page)

And finally, from the manual only MP3, WMA, and AAC (and apparently MP4 video, see above) song files are supported. Having the .jpg files on the drive does not seem to cause problems, but if you are copying folders from a windows PC from which MediaPlayer has run, there are likely several files that it may have downloaded that could, so you may need to do some cleanup as described in the OP.

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