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Tom[_4_] Tom[_4_] is offline
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Default Max. size of USB flash-drive for car decks?

More research and actually trying it has answered my questions. As long as
you obey the allowable folder/file structure, the device should work. This
is Kenwood's spec. from http://www.kenwood.com/audiofile:

Maximum number of folder layers: 8
Maximum number of folders (per device): 500
Maximum number of files (per folder): 4096
Maximum number of files (per device): 15000

15,000 songs would fill 60-80gb in typical use! I'm sure flash will reach
that capacity soon enough.

I now have a 16gb 2.0 flash drive over 2/3rds full and it reads with no
errors (except DRM files synced with Windows Media Player 11 get ignored).
The flash drive takes about 15 secs to load on power-up. As long as you
don't unplug it, the last song position is remembered after you turn off
the deck. Very convenient to not walk through folders again.

To be conservative, I'd group music into as few folders as possible. You
can sort tracks in any order by naming them: 01 Song5, 02 Song3, 03 Song8,
etc.. Folders help with category sorting and navigation speed if the deck
lacks ID tag genre sorting.

When the last file in a folder is reached, playback moves to the first file
in the next folder, based on nesting levels and folder names. USB's main
weakness is getting gapless playback to work outside a computer. For me
there's no turning back to discs now.

Tom