dscline

Which I'm sure is much better at absorbing shock than several inches of spring/hydraulic damped suspension travel on top of several inches of pneumatic tires.

Since these systems can't play uncompressed music, I personally can't imagine not being able to fit all you need on a couple of SD cards + a USB mem stick. But if you need that much music with you, I think a HD is fairly low risk.

SQive

SSD's are different than thumb-drives and memory cards. The difference, besides their potential capacity, is their speed. In a computer, an SSD is an excellent upgrade in performance over moving disks. However, that point is moot in the Audi...limited to USB 2.0. That being said (typed), with an SSD, you have no concerns about shock, temperature, or orientation. They've come way down in price. (I picked up a couple of 256 GB drives for $110, each.) So...all things considered, if you must have every single piece of music you have ever owned available at all times in the vehicle, spring for an SSD. If 256 GB will get you by, use a thumb-drive. The 2.0's are dirt cheap now that the 3.0's are nearing obsolescence. If, like me, you don't feel the need to keep "The Wheels on the Bus" in your daily repertoire, the 32 GB SD cards are plenty. If I ever manage to fill one up, I'll just remove some of the old crap I never listen to, which is still on the computer.
At least, that's my take on the situation.

-hef-

i dont absolutely need all my music available at all times, but on a 30 min ride to work or a 5 hour trip to my alma malter for a football game, if i feel the need to listen to an album on a whim, i can easily pull it up. typically, i am listening to music out of my "Featured" folder, which has all the albums of interest at one particular time. i have about 500GB on there now, so it is nice having the 1TB drive. once i pulled all my playlists from itunes onto the drive so that i could listen to individual songs of interest or of one genre, my drive size requirement blew up. there's some redundancy there, but there's plenty of room for that. thanks to the others for the sanity check on using a portable hdd in the car.

Redd

500gb? In what format?

spijun

There is a 500GB hard drive as an option. I think it's FAT32 format
AUDI 8R0063827A, usb hard-drive: Cart Part Info
GENUINE AUDI 500 GB USB hard drive 8R0063827A | Tonkin Parts Center - Tonkin.com

Redd

spijun-
My error. I didn't mean how was the drive formatted, I meant in what format are the files? My main "archive" is over 500GB in lossless WAV file format. That's about 350GB in lossless FLAC file format, but it drops to about 80GB in MP3-VBR2 file format.
And you'd need some damned fine ears and a very quiet road to find any audible difference between the VBR-2 files and the lossless files while driving in a car. Even with the Bose upgrade.

80GB, 14000 tracks. That's why I am surprised anyone would "need" 500GB to carry a large music library. I think 14000 tracks is already Pretty Damned Huge. (G)

Lookout57

My music library is over 11,000 tracks encoded as 320 Kbps VBR AAC and is 130 GB in size. I created my own music drives for my Q5 and A7 using 240GB SSD drives mounted in portable USB 2 drive cases.

You may say why use 320 Kbps VBR AAC? I did it cause I can hear a difference and it's the highest rate that Audi supports.

imdakine1

Can someone provide an overview on how to transfer iTunes library to sd card or usb hard drive so it'll play in the Q5.

I currently use an old iPod touch and am able to play the playlists and wonder what options I would have of I used an sd card or hard drive. I'm assuming no playlist and just playing albums?

snagitseven

A quick AW global search of "SD card playlist" would have revealed this thread:

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a7-...-card-2840501/

Redd

"I did it cause I can hear a difference"
Once upon a time, I could also hear above 19kHz and "break" the audio test equipment. Ultrasonic traffic detectors were a most annoying sound. My ears aren't that good anymore, and with ordinary background noise in a quiet room, I find MPO3 VBR-2 to be pretty much imperceptibly different from FLAC. So far the car, with the stock equipment, it is enough for me.
That Audi installs such a large subwoofer for a system that has so little true low-end response, should be a subject of great embarrassment to them.