Slow read from USB on every new start-up

[moveover]

On my Vanquish AMi, every time I re-start the car, it spends an eternity reading the USB stick before it eventually shows the music on it. Presumably it's reading and storing all the ID3 tags. Seems daft that it does this every time though.

Any suggestions on how to improve this? Does it help if the files are in folders, for example?

Thanks

[AdamV12V]

I personally have all my albums in Artist/Album/Track1... folder structure, but Im not actually sure it would make a difference to the load time as most of the artwork and info is cached by the car the first time it sees a new track.

My load up time is about 3-4 seconds and I have about 1500 MP3's on my stick. I have to say I don't find that to be a problem as that feels in keeping with the whole time to start up a car anyway.

• How many MP3 files do you have? If you have something like 10,000 then I wouldn't be surprised if it took pro-rata longer. I'd suggest deleting a lot of them, even 1500 feels like a vast selection to me.

• What speed is your USB stick? If its USB2.0 or older then buy one of the newer USB3.0 or newer stick for improved throughput.

• Assume you are on AMi III and not AMi II? If you are on AMi III then I would suggest you go to the dealer and upgrade to the latest firmware. It is significantly improved over the earlier releases. If you are on AMi II then I can't really help as I have no direct experience of that system - you can of course pay for the upgrade to AMi III.

And finally lots of useful info on AMi in my AMi Setup Tips - link in the FAQ above.

[Gday2]

For reference: I have a 256 GB USB-Stick full of mp3 and it takes about 4 minutes to read, then it starts playing. V8V MY09
Cheers
Christian

[AdamV12V]

Gday2 said:

For reference: I have a 256 GB USB-Stick full of mp3 and it takes about 4 minutes to read, then it starts playing. V8V MY09
Cheers
Christian

A MY09 V8V will be the old system which didn't read MP3 tags, only file names. The OP is talking about the newer AMi II or AMi III system in a Vanquish.

Pretty sure if you put all your MP3's into sub folders on the old system that you will eradicate the load up time. I recall my old car loaded pretty much instantly, but then I had no MP3's at all in the top level folder. Again check the speed of your USB stick, although I doubt the older cars supported the faster standards. Still not all USB sticks have the same level of performance.

Finally also sounds like you need to delete a few tracks for the car - no way you could listen to 256Gb of tracks, that is over 16,000 tracks (or 1600 albums) even at the max res of 320kpbs, which is just bonkers if you ask me. I even don't own 1600 albums, prob 200-300 max. I fact I doubt I even have ever liked 1600 albums of music in my life, let alone felt the desire to buy them to listen to them again and again.

[Zod]

Mine takes a minute or so to get playing from my iPhone.

[moveover]

I'm wondering also whether the format of the USB stick makes a difference. They have to be FAT, but there is a difference in whether it is formatted as Master Boot Record, or GUID Partition. I'll experiment and report back.

[anonymous-user]

Couple of things:

Buying a usb 3 stick if the car does not have a usb 3 interface is a waste of money. I would be surprised if AM put usb 3 into their cars, more likely usb 2.

You might find that if you move all the data off the stick and do a full reformat and replace the data the read speeds might be better, due to defragmentation.

It is not impossible for the usb port to have a fault which would manifest itself as very slow read times. Trying an alternative stick with the same data would help pinpoint if this is an issue.

[AdamV12V]

soofsayer said:

Couple of things:

Buying a usb 3 stick if the car does not have a usb 3 interface is a waste of money. I would be surprised if AM put usb 3 into their cars, more likely usb 2.

You are wrong, please read my AMi III setup tips link that I have reffered to above.

I have had it 100% confirmed directly from the audio team at the factory that AMi III cars have a USB3.0 slot, so you WILL benefit from a speed improvement with a decent USB3.0 stick!

[anonymous-user]

AdamV12V said:

You are wrong, please read my AMi III setup tips link that I have reffered to above.

I have had it 100% confirmed directly from the audio team at the factory that AMi III cars have a USB3.0 slot, so you WILL benefit from a speed improvement with a decent USB3.0 stick!

Good info, thanks.