Hi.
Has anyone tried using an 2.5'' USB hard drive inside a car?
I am not interested in mounting it on the car, just plug it in the USB port of my car audio system and place it in rather "safe" position (probably on a small shelf on the car console).

Will it be safe for the drive?
What about the shocks from the anomalies on the streets' surfaces and the vibrations from the cars engine?
Any input from someone who has tried it?

i havent tried it myself, but, assuming youre using a standard mechanical hdd (not flash or similar), and youre not considering mounting it even... i would say that that probably isnt a good idea, for several reasons... more due to possible high temperatures and harmful vibrations than anything... there most likely wont be a problem right away, but i would suspect that over time the hdd itself would simply be more at risk of failure by what youre proposing.

if you were to use a flash hdd however, that may be a better idea... as theyre known to be able to withstand much higher temperatures, and vibrations usually arent a problem (no moving mechanical parts inside)

I suspect that it would work reasonably well.

2.5" hard drives have been used for in-car MP3 playback applications before (see Rio Car). I actually have one of these units, and haven't had any problems with it. (Although the Rio Car is intelligent - it spins up the 2.5" drive, reads in and caches an entire MP3 song into RAM, then shuts the hard drive back down. This reduces the amount of time the drive is actually spinning with the heads vulnerable to shock by about 95%).

2.5" drives are meant for laptops, and therefore have higher shock ratings than you might otherwise think. Nevertheless, I'd make sure the 2.5" drive you're using only contains a copy of your MP3s, keep your master library back at the desktop.