USB thumbdrives getting corrupted

[Racer X]

I am trying to use a thumb drive in my 2013 Prius to play music from. Works fine, but the thumb drives get warm, and eventually they get corrupted. I can reformat and reload the music, and it works fine again for a day or two. The USB port is in my console FWIW.

Any ideas? Any thumb drives built to a higher spec to take the heat? Maybe trying to set it to read-only? Something?

I have tried both a basic full sized thumb drive, and one of those micro ones.

[modelamac]

Racer,

Have you visited the Prius forums to see if it is common or there is a solution? It might be worth a try.

[space-time]

Prius??? What is that? Get a Volt!!!

[Racer X]

It's the Plug-in model. Give me a break!

[space-time]

OK, just plug it in. You got your brake.

[DewGuy]

Does it get corrupted while in use (i.e. playing)?

[AllGold]

Which thumb drive(s)?

Not long ago I was trying to create a backup/archive of my boot drive by using Disk Utility's Restore function. I tried a few different super cheapo thumb drives off ebay and they always failed the checksum. Using a better quality Sandisk or even PNY worked fine.

[Onamuji]

Racer X wrote:
Any ideas? Any thumb drives built to a higher spec to take the heat? Maybe trying to set it to read-only? Something?

Get one with more surface area and an aluminum shell and it will shed heat more effectively than little thumbnail-sized ones.

...But I'm wondering whether it's actually the heat. I see similar issues with poor implementation of ExFAT support. Are you erasing the drives and using a DOS/FAT32 file system?

[Racer X]

Yup, formatted as Fat32 in a Windows 7 laptop. 16 gig older Kingston and a new SanDisk 32 micro one. I am thinking of a https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-METAL-Fla...hgadget-20&th=1 "Water proof, Shock proof, magnet proof, temp proof, and X-ray proof with a 5-year warranty " Looks like the large metal housing might shed heat far better than a small or plastic one.

I start the car up and the drive starts to come up in the USB media section of the stereo, and it never fully reads the drive, it just keeps trying to read the index forever.

[jdc]

Is there heat coming from or inside the port? maybe an extension cable to keep the drive away from the unit.