OliverK68

Not necessarily. I recently purchased a digital photo frame and 64GB card only to discover the frame won’t read anything larger than 32GB regardless of how much of the card is used.

If someone has a 256GB card handy loaded with a few tunes, I’m reasonably confident it won’t hurt to give it a try and then post their findings back here.

tk-porsche

Great info, many thanks! Will order a 128 GB USB 3.1 drive (under $20 from amazon.com) in anticipation of getting a 2019 CPO hopefull within a week (negotiations are currently underway, fingers crossed).

That said, do you just leave the USB drive / SD card in the car all the time, even in sweltering heat, or remove it when you exit the vehicle?

Speaking of manuals do you get a paper manual at all these days or is it all just incorporated into the PCM?

OliverK68

Should have a good ole paper manual with your vehicle.

You can also download the Porsche “Good To Know” app for your iPhone. Not sure what’s available for Android, but probably the same.

ETA: Be cognizant of the Size and shape of the thumb drive. If you have a 2020, it may obstruct closing of the Center arm rest. Personally, I prefer SD cards since they don’t protrude and have less risk damaging themselves or the port.

tk-porsche

Yes, thanks for the heads-up! The thumb drive I'm getting is really small (this one from amazon.com: ).

I have an Android phone and will have to investigate manual download options, but within PDM and having a paper copy are good enough for me.

ImpliedConsent

Way OT - but - yep, that's the limit on most devices using FAT32 file tables. exFAT above 32GB will do up to (theoretical) 128PB (petabytes). I'm just saying...if it does 128, it should do 256+GB.

tgcrun

2020s have USB C ports. Is this the same for 19s?

tk-porsche

See if this helps answer your question. I think the answer is that this changed for the 2020 model.
https://rennlist.com/forums/porsche-...ase-macan.html

tk-porsche

If it doesn't work, its more likely a firmware issue. Not sure you can do an update in the PCM internals to address that, but most likely not. Some operating systems, like Windows 7, were limited via FAT32 to 32 GB, maximum.

tgcrun

I have a 2020 with USB C ports, but I didn't know if that was also the case for the 19s. I asked the question because I didn't want you to buy a music storage device and find you needed an adapter to use it. My SA gave me an adapter when I took delivery of the car, and I bought a couple of C cords as well. I have a pretty extensive CD and vinyl collection, but when I'm in my Macan I find that I can access pretty much everything I want to hear using Apple CarPlay and my iPhone.

tk-porsche

Thanks, man, I appreciate the thought! I use flash drives anyway to back up PCs and laptops, so the drives will not go to waste no matter what. Looks like the 2019 has the "standard" size USB interfaces. I'm not a Mac person, and don't have a lot of storage on the Android phone, but am sure a USB flash drive or SD card will fit the bill just fine. Still negotiating at this point. They found a chip on the front bumper and so they want to fix that so that it passes the CPO inspection.

tk-porsche

I riiped some albums to MP3 files and uploaded them to a small USB drive and it works great in the X3, hence I'm sure at least a small USB drive would work in the Macan, as well. I used 256-bit encoding which seems perfectly adequate for my ears.

tgcrun

Hopefully, you'll get it worked out and be the proud owner of a Macan. This is my second Macan, and I love the car. I actually traded my 991.2 Cab for it, and I'm not missing the Cab. Of course, I might change my tune when the sun and warm weather finally appear here in gloomy central PA.

PistolPete

Came back a day late and saw that most of your questions were answered. I would suggest using an SD card and just keep it in the car. Save the USB ports (full sized on the 2019's and USB-C on 2020's) for when you have a passenger and want to charge 2 phones at once.

If you're able to close the deal on the 2019, be sure to have the salesperson go over the connectivity details of the PCM with you. I find the thing to be maddening at times and I've been playing with tech since the days of ***** and dials!

tk-porsche

Thank you for the encouragement and suggestions! Still waiting on the CPO procedure to be completed before I get back to the negotiation "fun" part on that 2019 Macan.

Meanwhile, I received the 128 GB flash drive. This is the Sandisk Ultra Fit USB 3.1 which with tax ran around $20 from amazon. I cannot believe how tiny it is - when plugged into a USB slot, it sticks out perhaps only1/4".

As to charging, you can also get USB splitters, plus I am used to using one cigar lighter socket, period, for charging in the current vehicle (which seems to be quite a bit faster than the USB slot, at least on the 2014 X3), so sharing a port if needed shouldn't be an issue. I may very well explore the SD card option, as it's probably "safer" compared to something sticking out even a little. Are there any concerns about extreme temperature ranges if the flash drive or SD card are left in the car pretty much all the time?

One added note on USB flash drives: Even huge ones (including the 128 GB drive I just got) can be formatted in FAT32 and that's pretty much compatible with almost everything you might plug it into. In fact, this flash drive came pre-formatted as FAT32. The only limitation is no individual file can be larger than 4 GB (not an issue unless you have big video files). If your flash drive is formatted exFAT32 or NTFS, you can manually reformat it on a PC to FAT32 not with the GUI, but through the command line interface (CLI). Bring up a prompt with "cmd" in the search bar on Windows10, insert and identify your USB drive (make sure you get the drive letter right!) and type after the prompt for example for the E: drive the command:
format FS:EXT32 E:
and in a short time, you'll have a freshly formatted EXT32 drive that should work pretty much anywhere that format is recognized. It worked great in the BMW X3 even though it's a big drive and an 'oldish' car.

tk-porsche

Just tested the above-mentioned 128 GB USB flash drive with basic FAT32 formatting and it worked fine in a 2019 Macan. I would expect exFAT32 probably would work, as well, but at this point, do not want to have to reformat and reload the drive with all the ripped albums. A friend of mine says the standard FAT32 is not as stable/reliable as exFAT32, but I have never heard that before and have used FAT32-formatted media on a number of different devices over the years without issue. This particular USB flash drive sticks out only about 1/4" from the back of the console compartment.