Portable music devices with big HD's?

[JW]

So,
I used to have an 80G ipod, which still seems like a lot of storage for portable devices (even now compared to the usual phone). If y'all wanted to take your roughly 1TB of full res and flac music files for a long road trip, what device do you find usable these days? A pad of some sort? Ipad Maxi? What can you fit a big HD in, but doesn't take up too much physical real estate? Bigger than a phone, fine, big as a laptop, eh . . . too big.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I purchased a 250GB portable solid state drive for backing up my puter... about the size of a USB stick...

JR

 

[pucho812]

Unfortunately it’s not just the storage, it’s having the interface software and or hardware. For example my iPhone interfaces with my car to play music. If I had a drive of the same size and music files, my car wouldn’t even recognize it.

 

[scott2000]

If your phone carrier is good, maybe a streaming service playlist would be an idea unless it's obscure music. When I drove with my son from CA to here, his Verizon service was non-stop. My Sprint, hardly worked ever...lol
Maybe T-Mobile is different now that they took over.

 

[grid_stopper]

in the diy spirt, im almost certain you could do this with a raspberry pi, and have as much storage as you need

 

[Jim McKeveny]

I've no personal experience with the devices, but a company named FiiO apears to offer what you are looking for.

 

[ccaudle]

So,
I used to have an 80G ipod, which still seems like a lot of storage for portable devices (even now compared to the usual phone). If y'all wanted to take your roughly 1TB of full res and flac music files for a long road trip, what device do you find usable these days? A pad of some sort? Ipad Maxi? What can you fit a big HD in, but doesn't take up too much physical real estate? Bigger than a phone, fine, big as a laptop, eh . . . too big.

Anything which lets you easily swap microSDXC or microSDUC cards (or full size SD if you prefer that instead of micro).
I still carry around an old SanDisk Sansa Fuze device which I have switched to RockBox open source firmware, and use a 128GB microSDHC card to carry my files. You can fit bigger cards, but 128GB is big enough for my needs and not very expensive these days.
So you would have a choice of multiple cheaper and smaller cards, or pay for a single 1TB card if your device supports it. My phone only supports up to 512GB cards for example, so I would have to use two cards to carry 1TB of files.
I would certainly choose a phone over an iPad, assuming you are talking about music files; no need for a 12" screen to play music. And assuming you didn't buy a crippled phone that doesn't have a microSD slot.

 

[john12ax7]

A phone with micro SD card is the easiest solution. You can also get mini usb flash drives that plug into the phone.

 

[Tubetec]

The issue that arises with a modern iphone is the usb connection is used for the audio . At the expense of simplicity a USB hub could be used then several micro sd cards , the audio out and external power could be added ,not as neat as the old phone with its own dedicated audio out .I dont know how easy or convenient is it to swap SD cards in the phone itself ,its sometimes a bit akward depending on model. Wear and tear on the card/slot/usb connector might be another factor to consider .

I dont carry a mobile or smart device but the loss of the audio mini jack just looks like an excuse to make what was once standard an add-on . Its especially anoying when someone calls around and wants to play a tune but they have no mini jack output so it has to be played via the phone speaker .

 

[ccaudle]

the loss of the audio mini jack just looks like an excuse to make what was once standard an add-on

I guess I need to amend my previous caveat, "assuming you didn't buy a crippled phone that doesn't have a microSD slot" or an audio output.

 

[Tubetec]

The loss of the mini jack makes no sense for plug and play connectivity at its most basic , which for most purposes is perfectly adequate .
The presence or lack of the mini jack doesnt preclude the use of one of the many high quality usb dongle Dacs like Ivans 9038 series or the upcoming Cosmos DAC if you want a proper balanced line out .Another point is many of these dacs work fine with high speed USB isolators allowing galvanic isolation between the phone , an external power source and audio ground , that might be worth considering if longer cable runs are a requirement .