[mcrmcleod]

Hi Guys,
Just bought a used SEL with 18000 KMs. As I was looking over the ford site it shows that each flex has a 10 gig hard drive. If so how does it work??
sincerely

Rob

[Shepski]

I believe you have to have the NAV system to get the 10 gig hard drive.

[mcrmcleod]

That is what I thought but the manual is so badly written you cannot even find anything about it
thanks
rob

[there4igraham]

mcrmcleod, on May 24 2009, 08:55 PM, said:

That is what I thought but the manual is so badly written you cannot even find anything about it
thanks
rob

They (like pretty much every manufacturer) print one manual to cover an entire model line. It's cost effective.

[rc_cola]

Don't worry Rob, you're not missin' much. getting data onto the harddrive is tedious and a PITA. you have to "read" your CD's in the player in order to get music onto the hard drive. takes about 5-6 minutes per disc.

since i have already converted all of my music, i'm not sitting there and waiting...and waiting....and waiting (i have about 600 CD's)

initially, i was really excited to have the 10GB drive because i thought i would be able to hook up my external harddrive via USB and copy the music there......big fat nope. all the other OEM's with internal harddrives allow this i.e. Chrysler MyGig, Cadillac....

i just bought a 32 GB flash drive and keep it plugged in the USB.....

so, internal harddrive, good idea, bad execution....

This post has been edited by rc_cola: 22 June 2009 - 05:52 AM

[Bjoeboo]

Yup, I agree.
Put me down as a "Me Too"
Awful execution. My hard drive is empty and will probably stay that way until an update or hack comes along to get my music transferred over to it.

I have a 16GB ipod nano hooked into USB1 in the console and it works pretty good. With 1 exception:
If I tell the Flex to play an artist, then I turn off the vehicle and come back later, it resumes the same song but the rest of the list is gone. I was in the middle of a 41 track playlist which was created on the fly because I told it to play a certain artist ,but now there are only 3 songs in the playlist.

When on-the-fly playlists are created to play a certain artist, album, genre whatever, the system should write this information to non-volatile memory like the hard drive since we're not using it for anything else.

I still love the sync system. It is years ahead of the competition. But hopefully somebody is reading these criticisms and addressing them with engineers.

This post has been edited by Bjoeboo: 08 February 2010 - 05:16 PM

[Gumby]

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? You cannot transfer mp3's to the Flex's HDD via a USB memory stick? What about via an iPod?

If not, this would be ridiculous. I have heard the Sync system has one of the best user interfaces and voice recognition of many of them. And it can't do that? WTF.

My 2008 Town and Country (which goes back thank god when my Flex arrives) has the Mygig. It has an AUX plug AND a USB slot. I grab my 16 gig usb stick and transfer 1000 songs in about 20 mins. Simple and quick.

The Flex cannot do this? WOW

[Waldo]

You have to remember that the hard disc is NOT part of Sync. They are totally separate systems that have come together. In fact you could have bought a 2009 Flex with Nav and the hard drive but not Sync.

There is no line of communication between Sync and the hard drive. None. So you will never be able to "hack" it into accepting data from a USB nor will there ever be a way to use the hard drive to store playlist info from Sync.

Now in the future the myFordtouch system is totally new and does incorporate a lot more integration, so Ford is working on it. The proliferation of Sync through the line-up was accelerated much faster than originally planned, thus systems that were already on the drawing board had to be made to work as best as they could.

[Gumby]

Waldo, on 09 February 2010 - 06:23 AM, said:

You have to remember that the hard disc is NOT part of Sync. They are totally separate systems that have come together. In fact you could have bought a 2009 Flex with Nav and the hard drive but not Sync.

There is no line of communication between Sync and the hard drive. None. So you will never be able to "hack" it into accepting data from a USB nor will there ever be a way to use the hard drive to store playlist info from Sync.

Now in the future the myFordtouch system is totally new and does incorporate a lot more integration, so Ford is working on it. The proliferation of Sync through the line-up was accelerated much faster than originally planned, thus systems that were already on the drawing board had to be made to work as best as they could.

Ok, but I was simply mentioning the fact that Sync was more or less top of the line compared to anything else out there and that FORD couldn't even intergrate a USB transfer of music (files) to the HDD. Kinda of lazy, again compared to the rest of the system and it's functions...no?

Furthermore, usb transfer of files to HDD have been going on since late 2007 (in my case anyway with a 2008 Chrysler)...so there isn't much of a reason not to have this function, imo.

This post has been edited by Gumby: 09 February 2010 - 05:42 AM

[Waldo]

Gumby, on 09 February 2010 - 08:38 AM, said:

Ok, but I was simply mentioning the fact that Sync was more or less top of the line compared to anything else out there and that FORD couldn't even intergrate a USB transfer of music (files) to the HDD. Kinda of lazy, again compared to the rest of the system and it's functions...no?

Furthermore, usb transfer of files to HDD have been going on since late 2007 (in my case anyway with a 2008 Chrysler)...so there isn't much of a reason not to have this function, imo.

From a strategic point of view you're right, Ford should have thought about this in the initial design concept. But the fact is you have a Nav system that was never designed to have a USB input. It uses a file format (ATRAC) that is not very compatible with what most users have, so it wouldn't be able to play anything on your USB drive anyway.

But you're still not understanding the real issue, the fact that the architecture is not capable. It's not just a matter of being lazy and not putting in a few lines of code. There is litterally no line of communication INTO the hard drive. The only way anything can be written to the hard drive is from within the nav unit itself (ie the CD/DVD drive). But Sync and it's USB drive are not part of the Nav system, so it can't talk to the hard drive no matter how loud it shouts, because the hard drive doesn't have any ears.

[Gumby]

Waldo, on 09 February 2010 - 11:42 AM, said:

From a strategic point of view you're right, Ford should have thought about this in the initial design concept. But the fact is you have a Nav system that was never designed to have a USB input. It uses a file format (ATRAC) that is not very compatible with what most users have, so it wouldn't be able to play anything on your USB drive anyway.

But you're still not understanding the real issue, the fact that the architecture is not capable. It's not just a matter of being lazy and not putting in a few lines of code. There is litterally no line of communication INTO the hard drive. The only way anything can be written to the hard drive is from within the nav unit itself (ie the CD/DVD drive). But Sync and it's USB drive are not part of the Nav system, so it can't talk to the hard drive no matter how loud it shouts, because the hard drive doesn't have any ears.

Of course I don't fully understand it, my FLEX has not even been delivered! So I have no hands on experience with the functionality of this system, just what I hear...

In any case, it just seems silly to have engineered the HDD to only accept files from CD's when other systems can simply extract data from many different sources (cd's, USB etc) and have been doing so for a few vehicle cycles.

[jrys]

Since the Nav/CD/DVD/Radio Unit can play MP3's from a CD, you would think you should be able to copy MP3's from a CD to the Hard Drive within the Nav Unit.
That would not involve the Sync System at all. I have tried to do this with no success. I may be doing something wrong.

This post has been edited by jrys: 09 February 2010 - 02:23 PM