Access Times on Hard Drives and iPods (solid state and hard drives)...

[The Chad]

Hello all, looking for an answer to kind of a unique question.

For several years, I have had a "high speed" iPod adapter in my current car (Alpine setup), and have noticed unique performances issues depending on what type of iPod is in the car, and I'm curious how the system in the BMW handles it.

With a hard drive based iPod, if you were to quickly scroll through the list of songs it would "hang" momentarily as it read from the hard disk, and if you played something, there'd be a pause while the drive spun up. That part isn't annoying, but the difficulty in scrolling through large Artist lists was.

When I switched to an iPod nano, then iPod touch, this problem went away. Since access times in solid state or much quicker, my in-car experience navigating the iPod dramatically improved. (I thought the interface was the bottleneck in performance, but really it was the access time of the drive).

I doubt many people have tried both a hard drive and a solid state iPod in their new car, but for those who know what I'm talking about, how does the BMW handle accessing this information. Is there a slight lag on either your iPod classics or your external hard drives?

[backtoreality15]

From what I've read, the BMW system indexes the playlists/songs with their appropriate tags upon first use. I'm sure this would make the external HD lag during quick scrolling almost non-existent? But I suppose first-hand proof from someone would be more convincing...

[roadburn]

I have no lag using my hard-drive iPod with the 135's premium stereo, iDrive and iPod connector. This particular Pod is an old 40GB click-wheel model, so if anything were going to hang, it would. I loaded it up with toonz & just plan to leave it in the car.

The BMW quickly downloaded a directory of playlists/songs. Now the navigation and playback happen in a totally iPodly way.

It sounds great, I might add.

[The Chad]

Originally Posted by roadburn

I have no lag using my hard-drive iPod with the 135's premium stereo, iDrive and iPod connector. This particular Pod is an old 40GB click-wheel model, so if anything were going to hang, it would. I loaded it up with toonz & just plan to leave it in the car.

The BMW quickly downloaded a directory of playlists/songs. Now the navigation and playback happen in a totally iPodly way.

It sounds great, I might add.

I wasn't aware that it pre-cached the device, which seems to be what is happening. My Alpine system must not do that and access real time, which creates lag. Also, I've noticed the same speed difference when using the iPod classic and iPod touch side-by-side (not plugged into a car). Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but it's nice to know the car doesn't exhibit the same symptoms.

[mphoenix5]

I have a 135, premium sound and the ipod connector. Depending on how fast I turn the iDrive wheel, there can be a slight lag... delay. Very slight though.

[imported_NuovoTech]

Say I just get the Premium HiFi & USB option, do I also need iDrive to play mp3's from a USB flash drive or ext HDD? :iono:

[60Driver]

No. But the larger screen makes it easier to read track information and the like.