I have a 2010 XFR and have been using the iPod adapter for quite some time. I had been using an old iPhone that had been collecting dust in my drawer. The bad thing is that it was only a 16 GB iPhone, so I found myself refreshing the iPod on a fairly frequent basis.

I had tried multiple ways of trying to get my music on a USB key, but as someone who is tied to the iTunes music library (for the short term), the AAC files could not be played.

Enter a whole host of experimentation to finally find THE solution.

First step. Buy the following USB key:



Second step. Clean your music library. Remove duplicates and get as clean as a version of your library as possible.

Third step. Sign up for Google Music. It's free and can now hold over 50k songs within the Google Play Library.

Fourth step. After you sign up, go through the process of moving all of your songs into Google Play. It will walk you through this step as soon as you sign up for it.

Fifth step. After a day or so (depending on library size and internet connection), create a new folder and download your music from Google Play into that new folder.

**** Functionally, what is happening is that Google Play will "match" your music to the songs available within Google Play. When you download your music from Google Play, it will now be in 356k .MP3 files. Brilliant! ****

Sixth step. Move the music folder over to the USB Key.

In my case, my library is about 20k songs. It took about 2 minutes to do the initialization the first time and then about 15-20 seconds to load when I start my car. But, for me, this is a small price to pay to have ALL of my music with me on one key and having the portability of my music at any time.

Hope you enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions.

 

I use a free file converter and convert my music to mp3. Even convert video music files to mp3. Older mp3 files that don't work, just re-convert them and they work fine. I use the micro thumb drive and it is so small that it doesn't get in the way of things.

 

That definitely can work. But, just remember that's basically creating a copy of a copy. You lose fidelity at each round of conversion. The Google (or Amazon Music) way gets you new .mp3 files created from the source, regardless of your source. And, there are no issues with potential compatibility.