[K66Gunso]

Since the car that I order will take a very long time/too long to arrive here because of the plant close down during the christmas, the expect deliver date shift from February to late March or early April. Because of that, My dad tole me to just get something on the lot.
There is one car that is very similar to what I want but no 6FL or the Ipod/USB.
In my last 535i, I only use usb but not the Ipod since I'm kinda lazy taking it in and out the armrest/ my brother keep steeling it. I know that the harddrive in the car won't be as convenience as the USB stick for adding songs but I just want to know how is the quality of the song, and speed compare to the USB. I also read somewhere that it is totally impossible to organize the songs, is that true?

Thank you very much

[Andy M]

Accessing an internal hard drive will ALWAYS be faster than accessing anything on a USB drive. Even with USB 2.0, the speeds do not even compare to a ribbon cable attached to a hard drive. This goes for the iDrive and your computer that you're checking E90Post on.

I copy most of my albums onto the hard drive. It sorts it by cd and displays the album's title in the iDrive. No subfolders though if that's what you're after. I prefer copying cd's over to the iDrive hard drive and then I keep my unsorted songs on a USB key in the glove. Quality-wise, I can't tell the difference. I think hard drive copied music is better quality though since I think the encoding bit rate is higher.

The only thing I don't like about playing songs directly from the hard drive is that I have to copy all my cds over which takes a while. However, it plays from the hard drive while it copies so you can just throw in the cd and go for a drive. By the time you're at your destination, the cd would have been done copying.

[K66Gunso]

Thank you very much for the information, that make me feels a lot better ^ ^

[Kilgore Trout]

In fact, MUSIC on a USB stick can be far higher quality. With a USB stick, you can encode songs in a lossless format (like WMA lossless). So, you'll get CD quality.

The hard drive rips CDs to a relatively low bitrate MP3. It won't sound nearly as good as a lossless format. So, you'll be giving up a lot in sound quality.

You'll also be giving up quite a bit of convience. I stick my USB flash in the computer and rip CDs while I am working. I have no interest in taking a bunch of CDs out to the car to rip them.

I'm not sure what the "impossible to organize music" comes from. You just set up a folder structure on the USB Flash drive, and then use the "Folders" option on Idrive to browse for music. I have all my music arranged in folders by artist (which is what Windows Media player does by default anyway). Its very organized and easy to access albums efficiently.

Finally, you gain absolutely nothing with the harddrive in terms of speed. Access to the USB stored music is nearly instant. There is no lag whatsoever.

I have Idrive with the HD and I have the USB port in the armrest. I almost never use the HD to store music.

My personal opinion is that the IPOD/USB option is a must-have and of all the gizmos on my new car is one of my very favorites.

You can ask anybody here who has both the Idrive/HD and 6FL which they prefer to use for their albums. Most of the posters I've interacted with who had this config quickly abandoned storing albums to the HD.

Oh, and don't forget with 6FL, you have limitless expansion. The HD is constrained to less than 10 Gigs - which is not a whole lot of storage these days.

My personal advice: Wait for 6FL. Well worth it.

[K66Gunso]

The thing is that, I don't listen to CDs nor I have any, so lossless format is not that big of a deal for me, but can't you store lossless in HD too?
Also, all the mp3s that I have are usually 128kbps-192kbps with very few 320kbps. The otherway that I'm thinking of doing is using a DVD RW since I only have 3gb of songs anyways.

I was thinking of waiting too, but if I wait, the monthly payment will be approximately $60-$80 more. So,, about $2000-$3000 more with 3 yrs lease for just Ipod/USB which only cost $400 bucks in the option list. Retrofit might probably ends up cost the same or less... Well, I might be wrong.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by K66Gunso

The thing is that, I don't listen to CDs nor I have any, so lossless format is not that big of a deal for me, but can't you store lossless in HD too?
Also, all the mp3s that I have are usually 128kbps-192kbps with very few 320kbps. The otherway that I'm thinking of doing is using a DVD RW since I only have 3gb of songs anyways.

I was thinking of waiting too, but if I wait, the monthly payment will be approximately $60-$80 more. So,, about $2000-$3000 more with 3 yrs lease for just Ipod/USB which only cost $400 bucks in the option list. Retrofit might probably ends up cost the same or less... Well, I might be wrong.

You can't store lossless on the HD. You can't play lossless from any other source than the armrest USB. I don't know what that is the case, but many have reported it here. I you listen mainly to music in MP3 format though, this might not be an issue for you (it is a huge issue for me).

There is no retrofit available in North America for 6FL.

As for the bang for the buck equation, that is really your choice to make. I can't tell you whether the extra dollars are worth the functionality - I'm only telling you what I know about the features of each option.

[AplineBeema]

What?? is that on the 09' only??

explain how its done please... ?

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by AplineBeema

What?? is that on the 09' only??

explain how its done please... ?

What do you mean by "explain how its done?" What exactly are you wanting to do?

[Jns2001]

09 only means that only the 09 models have the hard disk when equipped with Idrive, 08 and below does not have the disk option. Hope I could help.

[AplineBeema]

thanks. this was mentioned somewhere else but it was not clear what model year they were discussing. so i had to ask here.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by K66Gunso

Since the car that I order will take a very long time/too long to arrive here because of the plant close down during the christmas, the expect deliver date shift from February to late March or early April. Because of that, My dad tole me to just get something on the lot.
There is one car that is very similar to what I want but no 6FL or the Ipod/USB.
In my last 535i, I only use usb but not the Ipod since I'm kinda lazy taking it in and out the armrest/ my brother keep steeling it. I know that the harddrive in the car won't be as convenience as the USB stick for adding songs but I just want to know how is the quality of the song, and speed compare to the USB. I also read somewhere that it is totally impossible to organize the songs, is that true?

Thank you very much

Your signature shows you ordered a car?

Keep with the order the WAIT is killer but in the end you get what you want I wouldnt "settle"....