Bought a new amp and it has a USB port that allows me to plug in a USB drive and play direct from that. Also uses the TV as a menu, so i can select tracks, play random etc.
With this in mind i’m thinking of getting an external hard drive to transfer all my CD’s to and using that. Do hard drives need an external power source?
What sort of price am i looking at and any reccomendations?

Are you sure it supports a hard disk and not just USB flash drives, big difference….

Ah, good point. Certainly supports a flash drive, but doesn’t like my Sony Walkman mp3 player. Recognises my HTC phone but won’t play the music because it’s on the SD card?

Recognises my HTC phone but won’t play the music because it’s on the SD card?

Check the phone after you plug it in, it should give you the option to mount it as mass storage.

Its probably just USB flash it supports, just buy a few 16GB flash drives, but there will be a miximum size it supports, what amp is it ?

The amp recognises mass storage, so prob will play the phone if i do that – cheers!

It will probably support both sticks and drives. If you use a portable external drive it should power from the usb port.
If you are playing music files you can get a lot of music on a 16gb stick which can be had for about £10.
Watch what format the drives is, a lot of non-pc devices can only read FAT32 not NTFS. Its easy to reformat with a PC to FAT 32.

Amp is an Onkyo TX-SR309 – no, i’d never heard of them either but Richer sounds reccomended it at my price point.

The manual does say that if you connect a USB hard drive disk to the amp you should use an external power source.

onkyo is decent kit, Ok, so if it supports hard drives get yourself a £20 250gb hard drive with external power supply, sorted !!

Go large and get a 1Tb external. Around £60-80ish these days.
[edit] here ya go – http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/western-digital-elements-external-hard-drive-1tb-03661634-pdt.html

Cool, looks like i’m gonna be spending a wet weekend loading CD’s then!

Is this an LG amp?
I have a LG system in one of our homes and yes you can use an external hard drive
and also a USB too in the same port. In fact i can record cd’s onto the hard drive, USB too.

Most external hard drives are powered up on the lead that goes into your amp
or laptop.

Am I missing something??
Don’t you need a player of some description rather than just connecting an external hard drive to your amp?? Or does your TV act as the MP3 player?

If you don’t have an iPod or iPhone, the USB socket will also accept music signals from other MP3 players or multi-media devices.
http://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/onkyo/txsr309/onky-txsr309-blk

Grantway – the ‘blurb in the manual reccomends that any external drive connected should be externally powered, i presume this is because a decent sized hard drive pulls a lot of power?

Ni1962 – the amp itself will drive a USB flash drive plug-in and play, i’m presuming it will play a hard drive as well.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzYu1NPxGMc&feature=related[/video]

Ni1962 – the amp itself will drive a USB flash drive plug-in and play, i’m presuming it will play a hard drive as well.

Hi mate I see your blurb. Most portable external hard drives are plug and play type
But there are the Desk Top hard drives that are powered via a plug.
Best thing if you don’t have one is to borrow a friends portable external hard drive
and see if that works.

muddydwarf
Let us know how you get on,like the sound of it myself.
Would advise borrowing a hard drive and testing it before you spend an age copying all your cds onto one only to find it doesn’t! 🙂

Good idea – according to the ‘blurb in the manual it’s down to the hard drive being subject to the USB Mass Storage Class standard (whatever that is!).

EDIT: reading the manual, it seems the amp won’t like powering a hard drive so a self-powered one is the way forward. Now, to find one that is compatible with the USB Mass Storage Class Standard…

Hmm, bit steep some of the hard drives at Maplin, any reccommendations for a £20 one?

I don’t know about the amp you have but if I were you I’d do a quick google search to find out how others have got on. Some systems can be more trouble than others over numbers of folders & files and how the disk is formatted.

If your music collection isn’t too massive I expect it will be easier to use a good sized flash drive.

If you need to use an external disk that should work just the same as a flash drive and if it doesn’t draw too much power the amp may manage fine. If not you can use a Y cable to add power.

Are you anywhere near Worthing or Farnborough or somewhere between? If so I have an old drive I used to use in my car you could borrow to see if it works.

I’m in Rochdale i’m afraid but ta for the offer! 😆

I know nowt about hard drives etc so need some pointers as to what would be good for my amp. Apparently it needs something called the USB Mass Storage Class standard…

USB Mass Storage Class standard

I am no expert either but I think that will be pretty much any external drive you buy.

I will have a look for that old drive. I’ll never actually use it again so if I can find it I am happy to post it to you complete with whatever music is on it, embarrassing stuff the lot!

Cool, let me know what you want for it 🙂

I have found it, it’s an 80GB portable drive. I haven’t checked it works yet but assuming it does I can post it Monday if you email me an address. I think I have an email address in my profile now. I don’t want anything for it.

you have e-mail 🙂

email received and I have sent a couple back.

Let me know if you haven’t received my emails as they contain a little explanation about what plugs in where and the tracking number from Royal Mail so you know where the package is. It should be with you tomorrow.

Hope it works for you 🙂